Our Winter
by Jade Okelani
Summary: Hogwarts has a secret -- deep within its walls, an ancient society of power dwells. Ginny Weasley desires the privilege it ensures. Draco Malfoy holds her future in his hands -- if she adheres to certain terms for one month's time.
1. Default Chapter

TITLE: Our Winter

AUTHOR: Jade Okelani

EMAIL: jadeokelani@hotmail.com

RATING: PG-13 (for now)

CLASSIFICATION: SRA

PAIRINGS: Draco/Ginny Harry/Hermione

SPOILERS: Anything through GoF is fair game. This is set in the future, during Ginny's sixth year. 

ARCHIVE: If you want it, take it. I'd appreciate a note letting me know where it's going.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. J.K. Rowling and a lot of greedy publishers own them. Warner Bros. has a piece of the pie now, as well. But really, folks, let's face it -- J.K. is _never_ going to finish things up at this rate, so it's fallen upon us, the humble fanfic writers, to continue her epic tale as we see fit. (And if a time comes when she does actually finish, I will happily apologize for ever having doubted her in the first place. ::doesn't hold breath:: )

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fic has been written to please one person, and one person alone -- my partner in crime, Sarea. It is a work in progress, but I'm hoping to update it with some regularity. (Encouragement from you, the reader, will do wonders for my muse. *g*) If you love it, you have Sarea to thank, and if you hate it, you have Sarea to blame. *eg*

BETA THANKS: All the hugs and perfect madeleine cookies in the world to Sarea and her Big Red Pen.

SUMMARY: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has a secret -- deep within its walls, an ancient society of power dwells. Ginny Weasley wants nothing more than membership and all the privilege it ensures. Draco Malfoy holds her future in his hands, provided she adheres to certain terms for one month's time. The end of winter brings with it sorrow, joy, and change.

DEDICATION: To Sarea, who is truly the sister of my heart and the best friend I could ever ask for. She listens, she rants, she tolerates, she edits, she even makes Julienne Fries. Most of all, she keeps me sane, and also indulges my insanity. (Yes, I don't care if that seems contradictory; don't question the insane.) I do it all for you, Sarea, I do it all for you! (And I'm cool with that.) A better partner in crime, no one could ask for. This story is her birthday (and Christmas . . . and New Year's . . . and Valentine's Day . . . and Memorial Day . . .) present, and I hope she enjoys it as much as I've enjoyed creating it for her. No matter what happens in the end . . . remember . . . ::Jewish Grandma:: It all comes from a place of deep love! 


	2. Prologue: Law and Disorder

Our Winter

by Jade Okelani

~

Prologue: Law and Disorder

~

Hogwarts is unlike any other school, its dark, winding passageways and staircases that re-position themselves throughout the day making it a really easy place to get lost, especially in the dead (do excuse the pun) of night when you're not really supposed to be out of your bed. It's a haunted castle where the ghosts aren't afraid to pop out at you and offer a bit of sage advice, or in the case of Sir Nicholas, makeup tips. (We've learned better than to ask how he became such an expert on makeup; for a dead man, he can certainly blush convincingly.)

Trying not to be seen often makes you more conspicuous than you'd be otherwise, and I've nearly been caught twice, once by Filch, the groundskeeper, and again by Mrs. Norris, Filch's wretched cat. Now I'm stuck here, writing in my dairy, in a small, dark, cramped space, and I'm wondering if I'm claustrophobic and just never noticed. It's almost unbearably hot, though the castle is drafty and cold, and I keep hearing noises when there's nothing there, and I think the backs of my hands are starting to sweat; I didn't even know they could do that. 

I haven't kept a diary since that awful business with Tom Riddle during my first year at Hogwarts. Honestly, that sort of thing would put any girl off recording personal thoughts in a journal, but lately I've gotten the most intense desire to commit thought to paper. So here I am, writing in the dark, hoping my incredibly sweaty hands and total inability to see don't horribly smudge the words.

I've never really done anything wrong_ before. There were times that I've bent the rules, helped Ron and Harry _out_ of whatever trouble they'd gotten themselves into -- but I was just doing anything a good sister would do; anything a girl madly in love with her brother's best friend would do._

That's overstating things, I suppose. There was certainly a time I thought myself madly in love with Harry Potter, but it passed, like all things do, with time. And, of course, with Harry's total obliviousness. He fancied Cho Chang for nearly an entire year and some of it ebbed away then. What did Cho have, after all, that I didn't? Just because she was older and prettier and better at magic and didn't wear her elder brothers' old robes because she had the body of a 16-year-old boy -- you know, I don't want to think about Cho anymore. She graduated last year and I haven't the faintest idea what's happened to her. Neither does Harry, as once his crush passed (they always pass) he looked to his left and found Hermione, where she'd always been, sort of hovering around the general area of his heart, and that was that. 

And it's really hard to hate Hermione, too, so I had to give up on my infatuation with Harry. It's for the best. I used to tell myself that in the hopes I'd believe it someday; I finally do. So it's not like I'm in love_ with Harry or anything like that -- it's just so easy to have a little bit of a crush on him. More like hero worship, really, than anything silly and romantic, and it's one of those things that just won't pass no matter how much you try to let it, no matter how much time goes by._

Luckily, it's also one of the things that's all right to have stuck with you. Harry's a good friend, ridiculously loyal and stupidly brave, and the more that I think about it, the gladder I am I'm not in love with him. Hermione must have a fright worrying over him all the time.

Here's the thing that bothers me sometimes, though: I always thought Harry never noticed me because I was a bit mousy, my hair never perfect, I had too many freckles, I was more into studying than boys, that sort of thing. Obviously, it was girls like Cho who'd catch his notice, gorgeous girls with big dark eyes and exotic-looking features, long, silky black hair that I've always wanted instead of these bits of straggly carrots hanging from my scalp. But then he went and fell for Hermione, and, I'm not being mean, but Hermione really isn't the prettiest girl in the school. 

I think she's beautiful, smart and funny and caring, but she certainly isn't going to win the Miss Broomsticks competition. So if plain old Hermione is good enough for Harry . . . what the bloody hell is wrong with me?!

That's the sort of question I could spend (have spent) hours mulling over, but 

~

Oh my God. Oh my . . . GOD! All right, let me try to pick up right where I left off. So I was mulling . . . something . . . and then, suddenly, the wall I'd been leaning against writing disappeared and I was falling for so long . . . it was an unending chasm of darkness, and I felt just awful, thinking about how Ron was going to have to tell mum that I'd died and it was just going to break her heart.

Turns out 'unending' might have been overstating things a tad, because I did eventually stop falling, but I never did quite land. Instead, I found myself suspended in air, free to move my arms and legs, but unable to get anywhere with it. I couldn't see a thing.

"Hello?"

I'd hoped that would come out a little more self-assured witch-Goddess and a little less terrified-mouse-girl. 

"Welcome, Ms. Weasley."

I jumped in mid-air, the melodic voice startling me in the stillness of the room. 

The darkness faded away some and I found myself in a large chamber. It must've been a mile or so beneath the school, the tall, imposing walls made of rock or slate or something earthy and sturdy. Large crevices have been carved into the sides of the walls and they almost resembled the stands by the Quidditch field. Dozens of robed, masked figures were standing there eerily quiet, almost like Dementors, but a little (a little_) less scary. Candles suspended in mid-air explained why I could suddenly make out my surroundings, and as I looked down, I gasped to realize that 'unending' hadn't been overstating things. _

Below me, the darkness seemed to stretch on and on and I desperately searched my memory for some kind of floating charm should the magical force currently suspending me somehow give out.

"You will call me Cassandra." The same voice that had spoken before did so again. I saw her then, standing just so in front of the rest of them. "Why do you seek us?"

"To be part of the future in time," I mumbled from memory. 

"What do you offer us?"

"I am but a loyal and obedient servant of the Order."

"Belonging is costly. What price are you willing to pay?"

  
"I am but a loyal and obedient servant of the Order."

My lower lip is raw and bloody from how much I gnawed on it earlier. I wondered if they could hear my heart beating about in my chest like a crazed butterfly on an energy charm. The self-destructing parchment I received several weeks ago had been very clear; once I said that code I was not to utter anything further than 'I am but a loyal and obedient servant of the Order.' But what if I read it wrong? Cassandra was quiet then. Was I supposed to say something else? I had nothing to offer them, really, but my total obedience. That's why I needed them in the first place, isn't it?

I'd heard whispers of them before, of course. By the time girls reach their second year at Hogwarts, they've heard about the Order. As mistrusted as the Death Eaters, more secretive than the Centaurs, possessing power greater than even the Ministry of Magic. That was because the Order had no one to answer to. They were the oldest of all the secret magical societies, and the only one to survive He Who Must Not Be Named. 

Every year a new member is chosen, and this year, it's going to be me. 

The Order makes sure you never want for anything. They make sure the right people notice you when you graduate Hogwarts, make sure you get the best jobs and the nicest places to live. At least, that's what the other girls whispered about in the halls. I don't have that many friends, really. I chat with the other Gryffindors, but the only people I'm really close with are Ron, Harry, and Hermione. I know they don't really consider me their friend, though. I'm Ron's little sister and I know that Harry and Hermione have started to think of me as a surrogate little sister, given that neither of them have any younger siblings to call their own. 

It's just another reason why I want this so much. It'll make everything okay. Mum and Dad won't have to worry about me anymore, I won't have to move back home after school's done, and that insufferable git Percy will be speechless when I get a job that's better than his. 

And I'll finally be able to get a new robe that doesn't smell like Charlie's old Potions homework.

But back to where I was floating in mid-air:

"You must prove yourself." Cassandra's voice resounded throughout the chamber, and I took a deep breath, more committed than ever to seeing this through.

"I am but a loyal and obedient servant of the Order."

"Your willingness will be tested, along with your obedience," Cassandra declared vaguely. "You are in Gryffindor House. Which House do you find most repugnant, Ms. Weasley?"

I tasted blood in my mouth and released my lip. That was a direct question. Surely she must have meant for me to answer without using that phrase . . . 

"Well?" Cassandra asked, impatient. "Speak up, girl."

"Slytherin!" I blurted out, a tad louder than I'd intended.

"Ah. Honesty is necessary behind these walls," Cassandra told me.

I felt absurdly pleased with myself to have passed such a simple test.

"And of all the Slytherin students, whom do you find the most loathsome?"

I thought immediately of Pansy Parkinson and the way she always seems to make me feel like something that crawled out of Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class. Then of Crabbe and Goyle with their overhanging brows and mindless adherence to making my brother's life miserable. Thoughts of Crabbe and Goyle naturally turn toward their keeper, and my hands curled into fists.

"I see you've thought of someone." I could hear something like a smile in Cassandra's voice.

"Draco Malfoy," I spat out, remembering all the times the stupid prat had made trouble for the people I love the most, trying to get Harry expelled, calling Hermione a Mudblood, starting fights with Ron when everyone knows Ron hasn't got the sense to walk away from a fight.

Malfoy, with his horrible smirk and silky hair that would be beautiful if his heart weren't so black; eyes like the sky on a cloudy day, eyes that hid a soul full of pettiness and malice. Yes, it's fair to say that I loathe Malfoy, Cassandra.

"Draco Malfoy," Cassandra said aloud, "holds your place with the Order. You will go to him and you will offer yourself to him for one month. You will be as willing and obedient toward this boy that you loathe, as you will be to we who you will cherish. You will prove yourself this way."

Prove myself? I couldn't even breathe. She couldn't mean -- she just couldn't. But she does. I can tell by the silence in the room. Silence except for that damn butterfly inside my chest that decided it needed to take another hit of acceleration dust. 

Everything. They can't mean everything_, can they? And . . . _offer_ myself? That can't really mean what I think it does. They wouldn't actually want me to -- no, I'm just going to be fetching his slippers and cutting his meat, things like that, demeaning things, not . . . _demeaning_ things. And what if -- Oh, God, what if I do it, I go up to him and he--_

"What if he refuses?" I blurted out before I can stop myself. I wished I could see Cassandra's eyes. I'm almost certain they were pitying. It's not like I'm a wet dream fantasy here. Draco Malfoy's family has more money than I've ever seen in my life. They could buy him a servant if he wanted one. They could buy him a bloody concubine_ if he wanted one!_

"A member of the Order will not be refused," Cassandra explained with more patience than I'd thought her capable. "It is your duty to see that he fulfills his part in your future. Do you understand?"

This was the most unthinkable thing they could have asked of me, and I hate myself, because as horrid as it was, even then, I already knew what my answer would be.

"I am but a loyal and obedient servant of the Order."

~


	3. Chapter 1: Pranks and Prejudice

~

Chapter One: Pranks and Prejudice

~

The Gryffindor common room was unusually empty, most of the younger students already in bed, having given up on studying for exams. Ron and Harry would have happily followed them, but Hermione was determined that the three of them would get the best possible N.E.W.T. (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests) scores by following a system Ginny didn't hope to understand. Ron and Harry didn't seem to understand it, either, but they were extraordinarily good at following Hermione's orders.

Ginny had spent the better part of the day trying to convince herself that it would be lunacy to approach Draco Malfoy and offer to be his slave. Whatever the situation she found herself in, no amount of security could possibly be worth the humiliation she would have to bear at his hands. 

At least, that's what she'd been repeating to herself over and over again in a vain attempt to turn her back on all that the Order offered. _I don't need them,_ she tried to believe. _I've got my family and I've got my health and I certainly don't need Draco Malfoy. _

Her attention was diverted by Hermione's loud sigh of disgust.

"Do you want to get a zero on Transfiguration, then?" Hermione was saying. "Because you're going about it the right way if you do."

"Herm," Harry said patiently (well, Ginny was sure he was _trying_ to sound patient), "we've been studying for eight hours straight--"

"And we'll study for another eight hours until you two convince me you're even halfway ready for the N.E.W.T.s!" Hermione exclaimed. 

"Maybe we don't bloody care," Ron groused. "You're the one who's so obsessed with doing well on these stupid tests."

"They're not stupid, Ron," Hermione said in a very aggrieved tone.

"Now you've done it," Harry noted to Ron.

"Every single day, every single lesson we've taken here at Hogwarts will mean _nothing_ if we don't do well on our N.E.W.T.s," Hermione continued.

Ron looked a bit panicked. "Hermione, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it--"

"You should show more respect than that, anyhow," Hermione continued. "Do you think good jobs just fall out of trees?"

"Well, there are those idiots who play tree cricket on broomsticks that--"

Ginny tried not to giggle out loud at the way Harry shut his mouth with an audible snap when Hermione glared at him. As three heads whipped around to stare at her, she realized she wasn't entirely successful.

"I'm glad my N.E.W.T.s aren't 'til next year," she said, trying to cover her inadvertent giggle by clearing her throat.

"Yes, lucky," Ron commented absently. "Though you'll have that thing in the forest to look forward to."

"Ron!" Hermione hissed.

"What? Oh!" He looked back toward Ginny. "Forget I said that."

Ginny was about to probe further, but Hermione let out a sharp cry that drew the attention of everyone in the room. She was looking at a piece of parchment.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Harry asked, sounding slightly panicked.

"Oh, that ruddy little troll!" Hermione shrieked. 

"What are you on about, woman?" Ron asked.

"Parvati Patil passed me a note in Arithmancy today," Hermione said, looking a few moments away from tears. "I didn't look at it in class, because you know how I feel about passing notes in class."

"Yes, dear," Harry murmured dutifully, knowing full well how Hermione felt about anything that detracted from learning during class.

"What's the note say?" Ron asked around a mouthful of Chocolate Frog he'd smuggled back from Hogsmeade.

"Well, because of that silly misunderstanding in the boy's showers last week--" (Ginny didn't find what happened in the boy's showers silly, or much of a misunderstanding -- Hermione had climbed inside naked, then proceeded to climb all over an equally in-the-buff Harry. Obviously, she hadn't intended Neville Longbottom to walk in on them and shriek like a woman, thus calling half the school in to witness Harry and Hermione's act of lewdness, but it had happened, and Ginny thought it was high time Hermione accepted it, moved on, and stopped trying to spin it into something it wasn't.) "--that insufferable Draco Malfoy has taken to . . . he's been calling me . . ." She looked like she was about to cry.

"What's he been calling you?" Ron looked murderous. Then again, Ron always looked murderous when someone mentioned Malfoy. Ginny wanted to die.

"Herm," Harry prodded gently.

  
"WHOREMIONE!" she cried. "All right? Happy now? He's been calling me _Whoremione_! And it's apparently very popular, because Parvati heard it from a Hufflepuff sixth year."

"Oh, Hermione," Ginny murmured sympathetically. Was this a sign, she wondered? Malfoy was so cruel, so petty -- almost for sport, it seemed. Was anything -- even security -- worth the torture she would be subjecting herself to?

"I'll kill him," Ron declared.

"Oh, you'll do nothing of the sort," Hermione said, sniffling loudly. And just like that, she'd put herself back together again. Ginny admired that about Hermione, even as she wondered if it was all that healthy. 

Harry seemed to share her worry, because he wrapped an arm around Hermione's back and stroked the length of her spine with gentle fingers. Biting the inside of her lip, Ginny glanced away from the sight. She didn't _want_ Harry, but that didn't mean she didn't want a Harry of her own. 

"Just a few more weeks, love," Harry murmured comfortingly. 

This seemed to bright Hermione considerably. "I still can't quite believe it, Harry."

"Believe what?" Ginny asked.

"They're running off together," Ron noted.

"Not _off_," Hermione corrected.

"We're just spending the first three weeks of summer holiday together," Harry added. 

"We're deciding which countries to visit now," Hermione said. "Maybe Italy and Spain."

"You should come with us, Ron," Harry added. Hermione kicked him in the leg, then sighed, sending Ron a little grin of resignation.

"Yes, we'd love to have you," she added. "Who needs a quiet trip for two?"

"Thanks, though I know it'll break your heart to hear it, I couldn't come even if I wanted to." Ron let out a sigh identical to Hermione's. "I've got to get a job the very instant I graduate. No time to go about lolly-gagging like you two slackers."

"Is it that bad at home?" Hermione wondered.

Ron glanced at Ginny. "Gin, I haven't had a chance to tell you yet. Mum only owled me this morning."

"Tell me what?" 

"Dad's been sacked," Ron said mournfully. Ginny felt the bottom drop out of her world.

"Oh, _Ron,_" Hermione said sympathetically.

"It's all those Muggle gadgets he insists on leaving about everywhere," Ron ranted. "Mum told him it would get him in trouble with the Ministry."

"But Dad loves those Muggle artifacts," Ginny protested numbly, the idea of her father no longer having a job -- she couldn't even _think_ it!

"Yeah, and now he's going to have to love whatever money Percy, Bill, and Charlie can manage to send home to support all of us," Ron said bitterly. 

"You're not being fair," Ginny insisted. "Dad wasn't doing anything harmful. It was pure spite on the Ministry's part that got him sacked."

"Is there . . ." Harry trailed off, a guilty flush decorating his skin.

Ron offered him a tired smile. "You don't have to feel bad about it," he assured Harry. "Weasleys are much too proud to take charity from anyone. Besides, we'll be all right. I'll get a job, and Fred and George will con the capital for their joke shop out of some poor, unsuspecting git--"

"Um, Ron," Ginny interrupted timidly, "about Fred and George and their confidence schemes . . ."

"Gin," Ron said warningly, "do not give me another piece of bad news right now. I don't think my heart can take it."

"They're in trouble," Ginny said. "They were gambling somehow -- something about enchanted racing frogs -- and, well . . ."

"Well?" Ron demanded.

"They lost all their savings when Crown Prince Hop-a-long took a dive on the third lap," Ginny burst out.

"Maybe we should go," Harry said nervously.

"Yes, this seems to be a family matter," Hermione began.

"Sit," Ron and Ginny snapped at the same time, before redirecting their attention back on each other.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ron asked.

"Oh, like how you rushed straightaway to tell me about Dad?" Ginny pointed out sarcastically. 

"It's different," Ron insisted.

"How?" 

"I've only known for a day," Ron said triumphantly.

"I've only known for a week," Ginny muttered, "and was sworn to secrecy. They want to tell Mum the truth themselves. They figure at least this way, she won't be able to send them a Howler."

"Yeah, but she's more likely to strangle them," Ron said.

"Do you suppose they'd notice if we tried to leave again?" Harry murmured into Hermione's ear.

"No need," Ginny assured them, her voice as stiff as her spine. "_I'll_ leave." 

Before Ron could so much as bluster, Ginny had vacated the common room and fled through the Fat Lady's portrait. 

__

So much for reconsidering, she thought morosely. _Draco Malfoy, here I come._

~

She'd been watching him for going on half an hour now.

They were sitting on the grass, the three of them, and Ginny couldn't help being stunned that Draco Malfoy would let his robes touch the common ground. A poor night's sleep had left her with the same conclusion she'd come to as she stormed through the common room's portrait hole, leaving Ron, Harry and Hermione staring after her: there was no choice. She _had_ to do this.

Crabbe and Goyle were looking as Neanderthal-ish as ever, their robes hanging open to reveal school uniforms that seemed too small for their large frames. Malfoy's head was tilted back toward the sky, eyes closed, sunlight turning his already pale skin nearly as translucent as his hair. _Were the Malfoys angels once_, Ginny wondered idly, _angels fallen or corrupted or tainted somehow?_

He was lovely, in the same ways marble statues in museums were lovely -- cold, unattainable, and perfect to the point of absurdity. Physically, Draco looked fragile as glass, able to shatter with the slightest effort; beneath all that, though, Ginny had to wonder if he possessed some core of strength. Would almost have to, having had Lucius Malfoy as a father for the past seventeen years. 

Though she'd known of him for years, Ginny had never spent much time thinking about Draco Malfoy, beyond the obvious, spiteful thoughts she'd entertained on Ron, Harry, and Hermione's behalves. Since her pledge to the Order, however, she'd done almost nothing but think of him. Exclusively. Momentary woes like her family's financial straits and the twins' troublesome exploits occasionally filtered into her consciousness, to be quickly shoved aside again -- all roads led back to Draco Malfoy. He held her entire future in the palm of his hand and she wasn't even sure if she had the courage to speak to him, let alone offer to be his . . . 

Abruptly, Ginny turned away from the nauseating trio before her. She could barely even _think_ of her bargain with the Order; how in the name of Godric Gryffindor was she supposed to say it _out loud_ to Malfoy?!

Just then, she heard Crabbe and Goyle grunt something to Malfoy, to which he replied "Fine, then" and paid them no further mind. This was exactly what she'd been waiting for -- Crabbe and Goyle to depart and leave her with Malfoy; all alone with Malfoy. 

Ginny felt like she was going to be sick.

"Come on, whoever you are poking about," Malfoy drawled without looking away from the cloudless sky. "I don't appreciate being stalked."

Closing her eyes, Ginny breathed deeply a few times and prayed for strength. Abandoning the comforting shelter of the shadows, she walked straight up to Draco Malfoy and stared down at him. 

"I wasn't stalking you, Mr. Malfoy," she informed him primly.

"Isn't that what skulking about in shadows, spying on someone is?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Weasley?"

Ginny shifted uncomfortably, then forced herself to be still. He was _not_ going to make her squirm. At least, not so easily.

"Virginia Weasley," she confirmed with a serious expression on her face. She held her hand out to him and was absurdly proud when it didn't shake.

One corner of Malfoy's mouth tilted upward. "It doesn't suit you," he told her smartly.

Her eyebrows drew together, her hand still held out toward him. "What?"

"Virginia," he said. She waited for him to continue, then realized he meant her _name_ didn't suit her.

"What the devil's wrong with Virginia?" she asked, perplexed, her hand dropping.

"Not a thing," he conceded, "if you're boring, unimaginative, and totally without style of any kind." He snapped his fingers, as if just remembering a great secret. "Oh, but I forgot, didn't I? You're a _Weasley._ Sorry, Virginia, it does fit."

"No one calls me Virginia," she declared hotly, before she'd thought about it. "Everyone who knows me calls me Ginny."

His satisfied smirk actually made her blood boil. "So then, _Ginny_, what did you want?"

__

Nasty, loathsome TOAD. "I need your help, actually," she said aloud. "And I'd prefer to keep our relationship strictly professional, so if you'd be so good as to refrain from saying my first name at all, I'd be most appreciative." 

Staring at her blankly for a moment, he looked behind him, then back to her. In all seriousness, he asked, "Is this a joke?"

"No, it is not a joke," she said through gritted teeth. "I-- I--"

"Go on then, spit it out," he said, laughing at her a bit.

"I need you to consent to let me be your slave for a month," she burst out, her words running together with her nervousness. 

Malfoy blinked at her. He made a big show of sticking his fingers into his ears to clear them out. Then, he sat back on the grass, hands folded neatly in his lap, and raised an eyebrow at her.

"This _is_ a joke," he confirmed. "Honestly, I don't really get it, but then I've never been overly fond of Weasley humor."

"It's not a joke!" Ginny snapped. "It's . . . look, never mind what it is. I'd be yours for a month. I'd do whatever you wanted me to do, run errands, copy down notes on parchment -- anything."

He considered her for a moment. "Why should I let you?"

It was her turn to blink at him. "Sorry, did you not catch the 'willing slave for a month' part?"

His eyes rolled at her. "It's been my experience that no one offers themselves up for slavery -- even temporary slavery -- without a bloody good motive. I damn well want to know what your motive is before I agree to anything."

"There's this . . ." _Think, Weasley, THINK!_ "Club!" she cried out, then cleared her throat. "There's this club," she continued in a much more normal-sounding voice, "and they need me to sort of prove my commitment . . ."

Malfoy's eyes actually lit up. "By doing the most revolting thing you can think of?"

All the air went out of her. "Yes," she answered miserably. 

"What can you do?" Draco asked. "Because I don't want a useless slave."

Pursing her lips, Ginny glanced to his right and noticed the large bag of books. Pulling out her wand, she pointed it at them, and said primly:

"_Wingardium Leviosa Infinite Draco!_" The bag lifted, hovered around Draco's body, then draped itself over his form.

Draco looked puzzled for a moment, then gave her an appraising look. "It feels weightless," he said.

"It better," she said. "It's supposed to hover a few centimeters above whatever shoulder you've hung it on, so it looks as though you're carrying it."

"Dumbledore doesn't want us using magic for simple tasks," he said with a straight face.

Ginny looked at him wryly. "Professor Dumbledore also doesn't want us trading in human slavery, but here we are. So. Do we have a deal?"

"Anything?" Draco clarified.

"Well . . . No creepy sex stuff," she said before she'd realized what she was about to say.

Draco snickered. "Oh, then typical sex stuff will be all right, then?" 

While she couldn't see herself, Ginny was sure her face was redder than her hair. She'd said the word _sex_ out loud to Draco Malfoy. And he seemed so calm, damn him, like it didn't affect him in the slightest. Well, fine. If he could discuss it calmly, so could she. 

"There will be no sexual favors of any kind," Ginny stated firmly. Technically, she wasn't really allowed to make these stipulations, but he didn't know that.

"Fine," Draco agreed easily. "It's not like I want you anyway."

It stung more than it should have, and Ginny resolved not to let it show.

"Are we agreed, then?" Ginny said, her voice apprehensive and eager at once.

"I suppose," Draco said noncommittally. "Though, I don't know if you've thought of this, Weasley, but the only reason I'm doing this is to drive Potter and your git of a brother mad. Have you considered what you're going to tell them?"

__

Oh dear God.

She absolutely hadn't given a single thought to what she was going to tell Harry and Ron. It was quite possible that Ron would try to kill Draco, all the while screaming at Ginny for being a mad idiot. And Harry! She was unsure whether Hermione would keep Harry from strangling her, or Harry would keep Hermione from it. 

Ginny considered and immediately rejected the idea of telling them the truth -- they would never understand and she certainly didn't want their pity. 

"I suppose," she began, thinking out loud, "that you could be tutoring me, couldn't you? In Potions? You get good marks in Potions."

"Well, I'm rather smart," Draco noted smugly.

"But I also happen to know you're failing Herbology," Ginny declared with a grin. "And you've got N.E.W.T.s coming up. Barely two months left to study."

  
Draco remained silent, his eyes turning a stormier gray than usual.

"I get good marks in Herbology," Ginny added helpfully.

His countenance only seemed to darken further.

  
"Hermione even said I'm ahead of where she was at my age and that--"

"Spit it out, Weasley."

"You tutor me in Potions, which the entire school can learn about for all I care, and I'll quietly tutor you in Herbology. No one will ever know, you'll get excellent N.E.W.T.s, and I'll--"

"What do you want to get into some stupid club for, anyhow?" Draco asked suddenly, looking genuinely perplexed. 

"It's not stupid," she argued hotly, color once again rising to her cheeks, this time, with righteous indignation. "And besides, I need them. We aren't all born spoilt brats into filthy rich families, you know. Some of us have to make our own way in the world."

"Yes, by soliciting the help of a spoilt brat from a filthy rich family," he pointed out dryly.

Ginny wanted to wring his neck. That, however, would ensure she wasn't accepted to the Order, so instead, she gritted her teeth and pasted a big, fake smile onto her face and regulated her voice so that her tone was pleasant and professional.

"That's right. And I would be eternally grateful, Mr. Malfoy. Shall we iron out the details tonight?"

"Yes, over dinner, I think," Draco suggested smoothly. "Dinner that you've made for me yourself and served in the Slytherin common room. Good luck finding the password, I know a _professional_ like you won't have any problem with it at all."

~

"Excuse me, I was looking for my girlfriend -- bright girl, gorgeous as hell, always ordering everyone around?"

"Go on and go away, Harry," Hermione mumbled into her pillow. 

"Sorry, can't," he said, shutting her door behind him. "It's in the 'Good Boyfriend's Handbook' -- if I abandon you at a time when I know full well you're most vulnerable, they throw me out of the guild."

Hermione sighed. "We can't have that, can we? Well, come on, get over here."

Climbing onto the bed behind her, Harry wrapped one arm around her waist, the other snaking beneath her neck to tighten over her chest. Both hands pulled her body snug against his and she let out a little sigh of pleasure at the contact. 

"As I was on my way over here, I was thinking to myself. Harry, I thought, what could possibly be wrong with that girl of yours? She's smarter than anyone she's ever likely to meet, she's got a sexy arse she insists on hiding beneath layers of robes," Hermione giggled a little at that, "she made Head Girl and has a bedroom all to herself, which makes late night assignations with _me_ that much simpler . . . what, then, could possibly be bothering her?"

"You know full well what's bothering me," Hermione muttered. 

"You can't keep worrying about it, Herm," Harry sighed. "It's done, and, short of a highly suspect and inadvisable memory charm, no one's bound to forget it any time soon."

"If only some other big scandal would crop up," Hermione insisted.

"Even if it did," Harry said slowly, "I don't think it would help. I heard some of the others talking -- Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan, in particular -- and they're making plans to unofficially rename the boy's showers the 'Hermione Granger Water Closet'."

Hermione groaned and tried to completely bury her head in a pillow.

"It's just seven more weeks," Harry murmured temptingly in her ear, "just seven more weeks of classes and the occasional, good-natured jab--"

"_Whoremione_ is not good natured," she groused.

"--and we'll be free," Harry finished. "We can start seeing the world together, and spend some time with your family. Then we can go back and stay with the Weasleys for awhile, before we . . ."

Glancing at him over her shoulder, Hermione pulled his hand to her lips, kissing the tips of his fingers gently. "Before we what?"

"Er," Harry murmured, rubbing her arm gently with his hand that shook ever so slightly, "before we, um . . . maybe find someplace of our own?"

A tiny smile curved Hermione's lips upward. "Together?"

"Well . . . that is . . . I mean . . . yes."

"Do you expect us to live in sin, then?" she asked him, already grinning.

"Of course not!" he burst out, tightening his hand around her arm for a moment.

Gently turning in his embrace, she faced him, appraising his features carefully. His glasses were crooked and she couldn't stop from lamenting, and not for the first time, just how incredibly beautiful he was to her. He'd always been adorable, the type of boy you wanted to hug and hug, until all the sadness of his life left him. But he'd grown into a man, she'd watched him do it; sometimes, liked to think she had a thing or two to do with it. 

And, if she wasn't mistaken, he was trying to ask her to marry him. 

"You're beautiful, you know that, don't you?" She didn't, really, but when he said it, she always believed him.

"Was there something you wanted to ask me, Harry?" she whispered.

"My parents . . ." He swallowed. "My parents had a short time together, but they were happy. Really, really happy." He smiled at her. "You make me happy, Herm. I don't ever want to go through another day without knowing you're in my life, where you belong: with me, in our bed, in our home, wherever we happen to be." He laughed a little. "I'm not really doing this right."

"Oh, come on, Harry," she murmured, brushing that ever-errant lock of hair off his forehead. "I think you're doing all right for your first time."

"Will you marry me, Hermione?" he asked, his voice earnest and sure. She was so glad he already knew what her answer would be, even if his palms were sweating a little.

"Of course, yes, yes!" She kissed him, then kissed him again, because she could. 

"You're not worried, are you?" he wondered, pulling away from her. "Because we're so young?"

Her eyes rolled at him. "Harry, we've been together for nearly two years, we've known each other for nearly seven. I know what I want; I've known for years. It's you, Harry. It's always going to be you, and a few more years won't change it. I want our life together to start _now_."

"Didn't I tell you?" he asked. "It started a few months ago."

"Smart ass," she chastised, then kissed him again. They held one another for awhile, exchanging lazy kisses and caresses, a tangled mass of limbs stretched out on her full-sized bed. 

"You know you don't have to worry about what everyone's saying about you," Harry said after awhile.

"I know," she said with a resigned sigh. 

"After all, it's not like you were in a shower with nine or ten blokes. It was just me."

"Thank you, Harry," she said dryly.

"And since it was just me -- your steady of two years -- I hardly think that's whore-ish behavior at all."

"Maybe not to us, but Harry, we grew up around Muggles." Hermione shrugged. "This is a different world. And it's _our_ world now; has been for years."

"It's still hard to adjust to some things," Harry confessed. "Even spending summer holidays with the Weasleys . . . I've gotten used to the Wizarding world completely. But there's still eleven years of my life when I didn't know a thing about it. Granted, I wouldn't mind forgetting those years entirely--"

"But we can't," Hermione agreed. "And, in all honesty, I quite enjoy Muggle technology." She sighed. "It only gets worse when I go home for the summer holidays. What I wouldn't give for a simple telephone around here sometimes."

"Or an Internet connection," Harry added. "Imagine, being able to do research for spells on a computer instead of using musty old books and parchment."

"I rather like the musty old books and parchment," Hermione said with a frown. "However, I admit, during those moments when time is of the essence, what I wouldn't give for a search engine."

"We've been wondering what we're going to do after our last term ends," Harry began slowly, "and I think I might have an idea." Hermione gave him a questioning look. "What if we made it our business to sort of . . . merge Muggle technology into the Wizarding world?"

"Oh, Harry," Hermione breathed. "I don't know--"

"You hate it," he said. "I know. It's stupid."

"Stop it," she ordered him gently. "I think it's brilliant. I think _you're_ brilliant. We'd just have to be careful how we did it. The really old Wizarding families are totally inflexible when it comes to Muggle technology. There would be all sorts of licenses we'd have to get, mandates we'd have to have rewritten, acts of government that would need to be--"

"Herm," Harry interrupted gently, "I know all that. I've thought about it. And I think we can do it. You can do it. And do you know why?"

"Why?" she asked, absolutely glowing from his pride and confidence in her.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear. "Because you're _my_ Whoremione."

"Oh, you amazing _prat_!" she cried, socking him in the arm as she snorted out a laugh.

Then, he kissed her, and she stopped trying to hit him.

Though she still felt he was an amazing prat.

~


	4. Chapter 2: A Diary in the Life

~

Chapter 2: A Diary in the Life

~

The password to the Slytherin common room was rather easily obtained, Ginny found. A simple Polyjuice potion allowed her to transform into one of Pansy Parkinson's friends and accompany her back to the Slytherin tower when Pansy "forgot" her Divination scroll (Ginny had "borrowed" it from Pansy's large pack of books earlier in the day.). Having worn the awful girl's skin (she had a name like Vomit or Vile, and it was driving Ginny bonkers that she couldn't recall which) Ginny found herself taking an extra-long shower before she focused on supper for Draco.

'Supper' consisted of Ginny pinching off a bit of extra bangers and mash from the house elves. They were only too happy to accommodate her, and with the aid of her wand, she was able to keep the food hot while she washed the imagined Slytherin filth off her flesh. 

Sneaking down the winding halls and up the disappearing staircases to the Slytherin tower was easier than she'd thought it would be. It seemed she was getting awfully good at going where she wasn't supposed to. Muttering the password as quietly as she could ("Superiority"), Ginny stuck her head through the portrait hole, carefully checking the room for Slytherin students not already down in the great hall. Finding the room deserted, Ginny climbed in and sped to the small table and chairs in the corner (most likely set up for chess games) and began arranging the food she'd brought along in her backpack. 

There was something dreadfully imposing about being around so much Slytherin green. Her inner Gryffindor was cringing a bit. A grand portrait of Salazar Slytherin hung over the gently crackling fireplace and Ginny almost felt his eyes glare down at her. 

"Something tells me you didn't make that yourself."

Jumping, Ginny covered her heart with her hand, attempting to school her features before she wheeled around at Malfoy.

"Must you always go skulking about?" she snapped. "I've half a mind to transfigure the tips of your ears into little bells."

"You know, you really don't act like a girl who wants me to do her a favor," he pointed out dryly.

"It's not like I'm asking you for a service," she protested. 

"Well, I don't like my slaves to mouth off so much," he said snottily, sitting down at the table and spreading a napkin over his lap.

"Fine," Ginny declared primly, sitting opposite him. "You just have supper while I draw up our terms of agreement." 

Out of Ginny's bag came a sheaf of parchment and a long quill. 

"Item one," Ginny began, and the quill began copying down her words onto the parchment. Draco raised an eyebrow and Ginny shrugged. "Rita Skeeter's patent. I've been thinking about getting into journalism for awhile and Harry bought it for me last Christmas."

  
"'Harry bought it for me last Christmas,'" Draco mimicked as he speared a slice of sausage before dipping it in the potatoes until it was lightly coated. "It's sickening how besotted you are, you know. The whole school laughs at that dreamy look you follow Potter around with. Especially considering he's got that mouse Granger in his bed."

"Hermione is not a mouse," Ginny said angrily. "And I do not follow Harry around--" Her mouth pulled into tight line. "Item one: we refrain from insulting each other's friends."

"You can insult my friends," Draco said magnanimously. "I don't care."

"Item two," Ginny continued, as though he hadn't spoken, "No sex." 

"I remember that one from earlier," Draco noted after he'd swallowed a mouthful of food. "I've been thinking it over, and it's just not going to work for me."

"Well, I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to _make_ it work for you," Ginny blustered.

"If you want this whole thing to happen," Draco said in a silky voice, "_you're_ the one who's going to have to make _my_ desires work for _you_. That is, after all, the point, isn't it, _Ms. Weasley_?"

"I just . . . I _can't_ do it, all right?" Ginny said, shifting in her seat. "I can't do _that._"

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking you to do _that_. And good Christ, woman, just spit it out -- you can't stand the thought of having _sex_ with me."

Ginny's gaze darted around the room frantically, as though a group of teachers were lurking behind every corner, waiting to pop out and screech "Sex! He said sex! What _are_ you doing in this miscreant boy's chambers, young lady?!"

"All right," she hissed. "I can't stand the thought of having _sex_ with you!"

"Then that makes two of us, because I bloody well can't stand the thought of having sex with you, either," he said, blotting his mouth with a napkin.

"Then why are we having this pointless--"

"Because I have _needs_," he informed her.

Now, it was Ginny's turn to roll her eyes. "That is by far the stupidest bloody thing you could have said."

And then something happened. Whatever mercurial humor had been in Draco's eyes left, and all that remained was a chilling steel that made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up.

"Fine," he said at last. "I won't ask you for anything sexual, _Ms._ Weasley. But by the end of this, you can be sure you'll wish I had."

Once again, Ginny found herself in the unenviable position of shifting nervously in her seat. She began chewing on the tip of her thumbnail. What could he possibly make her do that was worse than having -- with _him_! Surely there couldn't be . . . but then, he was a Malfoy. There were stories of all the servants who had gone mad working for Lucius Malfoy. Had Draco inherited all of his father's cruelty, and then some? 

"Well," she began hesitantly, "maybe . . . that is to say, perhaps I was a bit too hasty."

The quill paused in midair, and began backtracking over what it had just written. Ginny wanted to curse aloud. If the magical quill and parchment had sensed her backpedaling like a ninny, there was no way Draco had missed it. 

"Were you?" Draco asked smoothly.

"A compromise, then," Ginny declared, trying to regain some sense of inner poise. "No conventional sex, but, should the need arise," her cheeks flushed when she realized what she'd just implied, but she forged ahead, "sexual favors may be exchanged in future."

"Excellent," Draco agreed, pushing his plate back. 

"You ate that too fast," Ginny pointed out automatically, chastising him as she would Harry or Ron.

"So sorry, mother," Draco said mockingly.

"Item three," Ginny said through gritted teeth, "when--"

"Say, how did you get the password?" Draco asked, having no regard for what she'd been about to say.

Heaving a sigh, Ginny sat back and folded her arms, deciding she'd best get used to his total disregard for her feelings or opinions. That was, after all, what any good slave would do.

"Polyjuice potion," Ginny admitted. "I turned myself into that nit Pansy's best friend."

Draco's brows drew together. "You mean Vilonna?"

"Vilonna!" Ginny cried triumphantly. "I knew it was something like Vomit or Vile."

It seemed to her that Draco almost cracked a grin at this, but before either of them could say anything further, the sound of voices could be heard outside the portrait hole.

"Someone's coming," Ginny hissed, snatching the parchment and quill up and stuffing it down into her backpack. 

"I'd hide behind the curtains," Draco said lazily, indicating the long green draperies near the portrait hole. 

Unwilling to argue and having no better idea of her own, Ginny darted over to them, barely concealing herself before the common room filled with loud, raucous conversation. 

A group of seventh years sat together in the corner, obviously attempting the grueling task of studying for N.E.W.T.s. Draco sat still and Ginny wondered why he didn't feel the need to study. He got fair marks in most of his classes, she knew, except for Herbology, and he got far above average marks in Potions. Hermione was the only student who performed consistently better. 

Yet he didn't have a reputation for being a brain, nor was he thought stupid (well, other than Ron) by his peers. His only friends seemed to be Crabbe and Goyle, and they barley possessed the intelligence to dress themselves in the morning, let alone get decent marks in school. But for some reason, they would follow Malfoy to the ends of the earth if he asked. Most of the other Slytherin students were the same, and Ginny just couldn't bring herself to believe it was all due to Lucius Malfoy's influence. 

There was just something about Draco, a lazy arrogance that commanded attention and made it hard to believe there was anything in his life that challenged him. From her place behind the curtain, Ginny was afforded an unobstructed view of him and, for the first time, he couldn't catch her looking. His profile was toward her, the firelight dancing behind him, causing his moonlight hair to fairly glow. 

Now that she found herself faced with the prospect of being in close proximity with him for the next month, Ginny was fascinated with what made Draco Malfoy tick. Normally, sneer firmly in place, Draco inspired nothing more in her than her total loathing. But as she watched him now, his profile lowered, cast in an almost ethereal (_or perhaps malevolent, Ginny! Do try to remain an _uninterested _third party_) glow, she wondered if perhaps it was something other than evil that had shaped the man he was growing into. 

The spiteful little boy he'd been would never have agreed to their bargain, no matter what he was getting out of it. The prospect of humiliating her in front of the entire school would have been too grand to pass up, and he would have done so by telling everyone who'd listen about the stupid, poor little Weasley girl who'd begged to let her serve him.

In the last two years, however, Draco had changed. There were no choirs of angels surrounding him or anything, no halo over his head, crooked or otherwise, but he certainly wasn't as single-mindedly devoted to making others' lives miserable. The Whoremione barb was the first he'd sent Hermione's way in ages, Ginny realized. And really, it wasn't nearly up to his usual standards. Plus, the only time he and Ron and Harry seemed to fight anymore was when the entire school got in the middle of it, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin. Even then, it seemed to have the air of healthy competition, boys will be boys and all that. Professor McGonagall had even commented on it, Ginny remembered, during a conversation she'd overheard between the elder witch and Professor Dumbledore after breaking up a tussle Ginny had been caught in the middle of. 

As though he sensed her scrutiny, Draco's head snapped up and he stared at the curtains. He couldn't see her, she knew, but that didn't help her riotous heart stop beating so fast. She just had to get out of this horrible room before her heart exploded, or she let out a squeal, or did something equally stupid to draw attention to herself. 

  
Draco rose from his seat and moved to the window by the painting. His face was nearly close enough to touch the glass and she realized he could see her in his peripheral vision that way.

"Some of them won't be in bed for hours now," he said quietly. "Blaise and Jasper stay up well into the night."

"Jasper," she snickered quietly.

"Hush," he warned, though she almost thought his mouth was slightly curved. 

  
Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Ginny compulsively clenched and unclenched her fists around the backpack. There was no way she'd get out of here without being seen. She was going to sneeze or something and everyone would look her way and someone would rip the curtains down and point at her and call Professor Snape in to discipline the Gryffindor spy in their midst and he would take one thousand points from Gryffindor and Ginny will be single-handedly responsible for losing Gryffindor the House Cup and Draco would tell them all _why_ she was there and the whole school will laugh at her for the rest of term, and all of next year, and she wouldn't get into the Order because she couldn't even do this one simple thing for them--

"You owe me one," Draco said ominously, just barely glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Then, louder, he said, "Come have a look at this!"

Then, he stepped to the left of the window, pressed up against her curtain-covered body so that the rest of the Slytherin students had no choice but to move to Draco's right to see out the window. 

"What is it?" Blaise Zabini asked.

"Do you not see that great hulking git?" Draco asked. Ginny was fairly certain he was referring to Hagrid. "He's moving those foul-smelling beasts out into the open pen. I'd wager we'll have to pet them or learn to ride them or open free trade negotiations or some rot tomorrow."

All the Slytherin students seemed to be dreading this, and they started fighting and poking at one another to get a better look out the window. When Ginny didn't make a move to leave, Draco kicked her shin. Ginny was extraordinarily proud of herself for holding in a scream. Taking a deep breath, Ginny darted out from beneath the curtain and slipped through the portrait hole. She never looked back, but since several dozen Slytherins didn't start a hot pursuit, and no irate teachers came to pull her out of bed in the middle of the night, she assumed her visit to the Slytherin common room had gone undetected.

Her dreams might have been filled with visions of Draco Malfoy in compromising and confusing situations, her subconscious turning over all the things that might have shaped the boy into the burgeoning man. They _might_ have been; because she didn't need those sorts of distractions, Ginny decided not to sleep at all. 

Even though she barely understood a word of her classes the next day, she knew the peace of mind was worth it.

~

  
_Here we are. First diary entry since entering into pact with The Devil, AKA, Draco Malfoy. Didn't sleep a wink the last two nights and promptly passed out tonight. Woke up an hour ago in blinding panic, having to record unsettling dream down on paper. Have desperately missed talking to someone who will understand, though am sincerely hoping won't talk back. Please, please, please don't start talking back._

Just spent five minutes staring at blank page, unable to compose my thoughts. Can't even mention dream out loud, let alone write it down. Will try again later in the week. Have a sewing assignment from that toad Malfoy. Sewing_. And he forbade me to use my wand! Arrgghh!_

~

__

Has now been one week since I was forced into indentured servitude to one Draco Malfoy. Am beginning to wonder if there is any reward worth the inescapable hell my life has become. Malfoy is enjoying himself far too much for my liking. Any reluctance he harbored about our arrangement has gone totally out the window. A list of my 'duties':

--Every night, I am to sit at the Slytherin table next to Malfoy and cut his meat for him. (The only silver lining on this gloomy cloud is that Ron, Harry and Hermione have taken supper in the Gryffindor common room the last seven nights as Hermione is depriving them of all social contact until they can pass her pre-N.E.W.T. examination.)

--Am required to do all of Malfoy's Herbology homework for him. (He claims that my tutoring him is only supposed to ensure he gets a passing grade in the "ridiculously unnecessary class" and any homework is merely "busy work for that stupid git Professor Sprout. I haven't the time for it; I've got places to be, you know" and as his dutiful slave, I should take care of it for him. Never mind that I've got final examinations -- not to mention that ominous thing in the forest Ron let slip -- of my own to worry over. God, he makes me so mad.)

--Was required to make no less than four trips into Hogsmeade to purchase, among other items, a keg of butterbeer, six rats to feed to Hiss, a thirteen-foot boa constrictor and the Slytherins' new Quidditch team mascot, eleven rolls of parchment, a dozen fresh quills, and several wizarding magazines of questionable notoriety. (I cannot divulge any of the other items, even to this diary, as I feel doing so would severely impair my ability to block them totally from my mind.)

--Have now sewn -- by. Hand. With. No. Wand -- monikers into all of Draco's sweaters. (His mum sends him a new one every week -- some of them are quite gorgeous, ranging from thin cashmere to thick wool. Wouldn't have minded keeping a few for myself, because God knows he'll never notice, but just in case he did, stealing doesn't seem like a good way to endear oneself to one's task master.) 

Tiny confession: I did not sew precisely the monogram Malfoy intended when he ordered me to, and I quote, "Make sure anyone who comes across one of them knows who they belong to. And, Ms. Weasley?_ No magic. I'd like to see how straight you can make the stitches by hand." _

Oh, I made the stitches straight as bloody arrows, all right. Mr. Malfoy_ should learn to be more specific when giving an order, however, for the names I've sewn into his sweaters certainly bear no technical resemblance to Draco Malfoy, but, in my opinion, anyone who should come across them will know exactly whom they belong to. Harry's always referring to Malfoy as that "Stupid Git" and I've heard Hermione call him a "Ruddy Toad" half a dozen times at least; Ron's favorite term for him was "Ferret Face" for years; Malfoy's white cashmere sweater will commemorate it always now. Twenty-eight sweaters later and I was nearly running out of derogatory combinations. _

I must say, it's certainly quite liberating to be writing in a journal again, but even though it's not talking back to me (thank you, by the way), I still feel… uneasy. Malfoy would say I was being a silly bint, but I just can't help it. So many people could have died and it would have been all my fault, because of that stupid crush I had on Harry. Oddly enough, whenever I think about that year, when the awfulness surrounding Tom Riddle isn't foremost in my mind, it isn't how I used to feel about Harry that occurs to me, but rather, how horribly humiliated I was when Malfoy read my Valentine aloud. 

Recently when I've remembered how cruel he was, how much I absolutely and completely hated him with a clarity I'd never known before, I'm forced to realize how very different he is now. It's something I've been thinking about for awhile, but forced into such close quarters with him, I have to admit that Draco seems to have lost a lot of his nastiness for the sake of being nasty. Though the tasks he's assigned me have been pretty bloody nasty… 

In fact, the only bright spot in the whole of the past week has been that Draco hasn't demanded anything even remotely sexual of me. I'm really not sure how I'm going to handle things if he ever does. On the one hand, having gotten to know him a bit, it's not the worst_ prospect I could imagine, but even though I no longer loathe him totally doesn't mean I want to have sex with him. I mean, just because there might be some sort of primal attraction between us, it doesn't mean I'm going to_

Ugh. Can't think of this for another second, and am late for dinner.

~

__

Never should have gone down for dinner, that's all there is to it. Should have stayed locked up in the Gryffindor tower until I died because I was dehydrated or panic attacked myself to death. I could have haunted the castle forever, gotten to know Moaning Myrtle and Sir Nicholas (It's near his Death Day; wonder if we could just celebrate together?), and even the Bloody Baron. It certainly would have spared all parties involved a horrible, awful, nasty evening.

The good news: Harry and Ron have completed Hermione's pre-N.E.W.T. examinations, and are now free to once again wander about the masses.

The bad news: Harry and Ron have completed Hermione's pre-N.E.W.T. examinations, and are now free to once again wander about the masses.

I don't think I've ever seen Ron's face quite so purple before as it was when he walked into the great hall and found me sitting at the Slytherin table, meticulously mixing Draco's peas into his mashed potatoes "the way my mum makes them." 

Ron and Harry were laughing, each of them with an arm slung around Hermione's shoulders. Some incredibly melodramatic part of me thinks of that moment as 'The Moment the Laughter Stopped.' Ron saw me before I glanced up from Draco's mashed potatoes, I know, because he was already striding toward me with a befuddled, 'What in the name of all that's holy ARE you doing at the Slytherin table?' look on his face by the time I laid eyes on him again.

I shall now attempt to reconstruct the "conversation" that ensued between me and my brother from my somewhat sketchy (I was deeply traumatized) memory of last night:

"What is the name of Godric Gryffindor has gotten into you?!" Ron yelped as he grabbed my arm and hauled me off my seat at the Slytherin table. "Bloody hell, Gin, do you realize where you're sitting?!"

"Yes," I said in a perfectly calm and reasonable voice.

"Are you mad?!" 

"I'm perfectly sane, thank you." 

Now, here's the point where I started pleading to Ron with my eyes, begging him silently to please, please just let it go. Trust in me to know what the bloody hell I'm doing and just GO on with his own business. The really funny thing is, at the time, I actually thought there was a chance. For a moment he seemed to genuinely understand what I was trying to tell him and he was going say "Well, Gin, as long as you know what you're doing," and leave me be. 

At the time.

"See here, Malfoy," my brother said instead, directing his ire toward Draco, who at the time had been innocently and neatly licking the very tips of his fingers clean of any trace of the Cornish game hens we were eating, "If you've done something to my sister--"

"I haven't done a bloody thing to your sister," Draco had said in a laconic tone. "Perhaps she's finally come to her senses and seen which table the people with any class sit at."

It was then that Crabbe and Goyle began hitting at one another and fighting over a hen leg. To Draco's credit, the display only took away marginally from his jab. Also working in his favor was the fact that Ron was much too furious to notice anything Crabbe and Goyle might have been doing at the time.

Eyes widening, veins bulging, I was actually quite afraid for Draco's life for a second there, because Ron wasn't going for his wand, no, Ron was about to unleash seventeen years of middle-child syndrome, seven years of being the sidekick of The Boy Who Lived, and losing the girl he'd had a severe crush on when he was fourteen to that same best friend who, even Ron had to admit, had had her heart tied up for quite some time. 

Luckily for all of us (Draco's a pretty fast draw on his wand, and once Ron had bloodied him initially I'm fairly certain Draco could kill my brother), I know just when Ron is about to snap. I took him by his arm and physically hauled him out of the dining room and into the hall.

"HAVE YOU LOST ALL POSSESSION OF YOUR SENSES?!"

I think that's what he said. All I can really remember is how loud it was. I'm sure everyone still inside could hear Ron's part of our "conversation" quite clearly. 

"He's tutoring me in Potions," was all I could manage to say in a panicked voice. Never had it sounded like so thin and lame an excuse.

It seemed for a moment that Ron was calming with those words and I was absurdly proud of myself. Perhaps I wasn't lame at all. Then, he started breathing heavily through his nose, and it made this … sound … that I can't describe and I truly thought my brother was going to explode right there in front of me.

"DRACO MALFOY IS TUTORING_ MY SISTER?! What the HELL is he making you do for him?!"_

"I'm just doing little tasks," I hurried to assure him. "You know, cutting up his meat, some light sewing." Yes, I realize it was technically a fib, but come off it. I was desperate. I don't normally make it a practice of lying to one of my brothers -- well, that's not entirely accurate either, I suppose. I don't make it a practice of lying to my brother Ron._ I'm not sure I've ever told Percy the truth about where I've been or whom I've seen once, simply on principle. _

"Gin," Ron said then, and he was clearly trying to calm down, "for fuck's sake, if you needed help in Potions, why didn't you come to ME?"

Now, I just didn't feel that needed to be dignified with any kind of response on my part, so I just stared at him until he sighed and sort of shrugged at me in acknowledgement. 

"Fine, fine," he conceded, "then if not me, how about Hermione? She's bloody brilliant at everything, except Divination, and believe me, she's got a whole convoluted rant about how Divination shouldn't even be considered a real class."

Heard it. But I'd never blessed Ron's propensity for getting sidetracked in his own mind more than at that moment, because I was desperately trying to come up with a plausible reason why I hadn't_ just gone to Hermione. Well, you see, Ron, the secret society I'm trying to join wanted me to play slave to someone I _hated._ Oh, but I don't hate him anymore. We're certainly not friends or anything, but I've had some spare time to observe him over the past week, and while he's certainly bitterly sarcastic, and more than a little cruel, he's certainly not the spawn of Satan. Or, rather, he _is_ the spawn of Satan, but it's not his fault Lucius Malfoy is so awful. _

Did I mention this dream I had the other night?

"Hermione more than has her hands full with you and Harry," was what I said out loud. "The N.E.W.T.s are a dreadfully stressful time, Ron, and Hermione's been dedicating all her time and energy to seeing that you two layabouts pull off marginally passing marks." 

"Don't insult me after I've just caught you playing maid to Draco Malfoy," Ron warned then. "It's bad form."

Then I grinned at him, and he sort of grinned back, and it was like an alliance between us, the two youngest. It had always been us against them and we'd lost that when he left for Hogwarts; when he left me behind, all alone with Mum and Dad, desperately wishing I could be with him and Fred and George at this grand place I'd heard elder brothers going on about for years during summer holiday. I love Harry and Hermione dearly, but in that moment, I had my brother back and nothing had ever felt so grand.

"It's all right, Ron," I said after a moment of quiet bonding. "I really do need the help in Potions. I'm failing something awful, and it's not too high a price to pay, being at Malfoy's beck and call for a few weeks. Really, it's for the best this way. I'll get some practice in on dealing with insufferable gits in real life."

That made Ron grin all the wider, but I do so wish I could take it back, because at that very moment, Draco Malfoy demonstrated his atrociously bad timing. He had exited the Great Hall – looking for me, presumably – and looked positively livid. I was almost scared of him for a second. His eyes were like slate, that is, if you could set fire to slate and watch it sort of smoke and burn. 

"Sorry to interrupt, Weasley," Draco said to Ron and he sounded so perfectly calm and rational. Why, then, could I_ tell he was anything but? "We're late for a tutoring session. I don't have all the time in the world to wait around while you have a family squabble, do I?" Then his hand closed around my arm and he pulled me along with him. "Say tah to sister." _

I couldn't bear to look back at Ron; I was just desperately glad my stupid brother didn't do something ridiculous and brave. I'm pretty sure he just ran back to Harry and Hermione and ranted their ears off for the rest of supper. 

As for Draco and I, as soon as we got away from Ron, he turned on me and . . . he was SO FURIOUS! 

"While you are acting as my servant you will not_ speak about me in that manner again. Do you understand?" _

"Draco, I'm sorry," I'd tried to say, but he'd made a slashing motion with his arm and came closer to me, until I could feel his breath against my face.

"Mr. Malfoy," he corrected. His voice cracked and that seemed to make him angrier. He opened his mouth to say something else, then just turned and walked away from me. 

I wanted to call after him, to try and apologize again, though I'm not even sure why. It's not like anything I said to Ron wasn't something I hadn't said to Draco's face in the past. I wanted to ask him about our tutoring session, because while I really didn't need the help all that badly in Potions, he would_ do poorly in Herbology on his N.E.W.T.s without my help. And I found that I didn't want him to do poorly; I wanted him to do well, as I knew he could._

Oh, goddamn it. I've been staring at what I just wrote and I sound like such a silly ninny. If I can't be honest with my diary_, that makes me a pretty sad sort, doesn't it? Fine. So. A few nights ago, I had a dream. About Draco. Malfoy. About Draco Malfoy. _

I was down in the dungeon for Potions, and Snape was asking me all sorts of questions I didn't know the answers to. Then Draco was there, and he was whispering the answers into my ear, but he was invisible, because Snape couldn't see him. Suddenly, I had all the answers, and Snape kept trying to trip me up. Finally, he said I had passed the test and I never had to come back to Potions again, and I was to take this purple pear to Dumbledore's office to prove that I'd finished.

Then I was in the hallway, and I was holding the purple pear, and Draco was walking with me, congratulating me on finally listening to him. Then he said we should eat the pear, but I didn't want to, because if we ate the pear, that meant I couldn't give it to Professor Dumbledore, and Dumbledore needed the pear more than we did. Then, Draco suggested that we just eat half of the pear, because Dumbledore didn't need much of it at all. 

In the dream, this made perfect sense, and I held the fruit to his lips. He bit down on it and the juice ran down his chin, stained his shirt right over his ribcage. He was wearing a boy's dress shirt and it seemed to make an angry line from ribcage to lower abdomen. 

"Now look what you've done," Draco said, and things changed again, and we were lying in a room I'd never seen before, on a bed. 

There was sunlight streaming in through an open window, and Draco's eyes were more silver than I'd ever seen them, his hair messy and tumbled in a way I'd never imagine he'd allow it. He wasn't wearing any clothes, and I realized I wasn't, either, and my hand trailed down his chest. I looked down and saw the stain from the pear. 

"It's starting to fade," I noted, tracing over it with the tips of my fingers.

His eyes were filled with tears and I realized that's why they seemed so silver. He brought his hand to my face and gently pushed my hair back, tracing the lines in my forehead with such care.

"Love doesn't fade, Gin," he murmured, then kissed me.

And then I woke up.

Will likely go mad soon, sodding Order or no sodding Order.

~


	5. Chapter 3: Something Wicca This Way Come...

~

Chapter 3: Something Wicca This Way Comes

~

The next morning as the other girls in the Gryffindor common room began to stir, Ginny opened her eyes, having been awake for nearly an hour. She'd spent the entire night fretting about everything from Ron's (and, most likely, Harry and Hermione's) discovery of her pact with Draco, to Draco himself, who was most likely still put out with her over what he'd overheard her say to Ron. 

Ginny went through the motions of dressing and fixing her hair (which consisted of strapping the sides back with sturdy black barrettes, letting the rest fall around her shoulders in a riotous mass) before, with a sigh, she trudged down the long staircase that would take her to breakfast in the Great Hall. 

As she passed by Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, however, Ginny was distracted by what sounded like _two_ girls sobbing. Edging her way inside, Ginny glanced around until she spotted a dark-haired figure sitting with her back against the wall beneath a sink. 

"Hello?" Ginny said hesitantly.

The girl's head snapped up and Ginny gasped a little. She was strikingly beautiful, with big, charcoal-black eyes and long, silky black hair to match. Ginny self-consciously tucked her wild red carrots behind her ears. The other girl had exotic features, and Ginny wondered where she was from. 

"H-h-he-e-el," the other girl said, then started crying again. 

"What's the matter?" Ginny asked softly, moving closer. "Do you need me to get a teacher?"

"Goodness, please do," came a tired voice from inside one of the stalls.

Ginny inched the door open a bit. "Hullo, Myrtle," she greeted the ghost.

Myrtle sniffed importantly. "She's really starting to get on my nerves."

"I'll see what I can do," Ginny assured her.

"She won't stop crying," Myrtle added. "That's _my_ gig, you know. Morning is when I gather my thoughts and it's absolutely impossible to focus with her carrying on like that."

"Yes, well, I promise, I'll see that her depression doesn't interfere with your self-pity much longer," Ginny assured Myrtle dryly.

"See that you do," Myrtle said, before slamming the stall door shut again.

"P-p-please no teachers," the other girl said, clearly trying to get a hold of herself.

"Here," Ginny said, ripping a few paper towels out of the machine and offering them to the other girl, who blew her nose loudly on one. "What's your name?"

"Ezra," she said after a moment, wiping her eyes on the long sleeves of her robe. "Ezra Easton." Ginny suspected this girl was older, perhaps a seventh year, but Ginny didn't recognize her. Hogwarts was a large school, but not so large that everyone didn't at least know what everyone else looked like.

"Ezra. What brings you to Hogwarts?"

"My doom, that's what," Ezra said.

"Doom?" Ginny said doubtfully. "Come now, it can't be that bad."

"Trust me, I'm doomed," Ezra said. "I know about doomed, and I'm it. I'd fling myself to my death, even though suicide probably means a fiery eternity, but I'm sure my family would follow me there and then it'd really be Hell."

Wincing, Ginny sat down beside Ezra, hoping there was nothing too disgusting on the floor.

"Where are you from?" Ginny asked after a few moments of silence had passed.

"Where aren't I from?" Ezra said with a slight smile. "I was born in the Philippines, then raised on the island of Oahu until my eleventh birthday."

"Oahu?" Ginny asked.

  
"One of the Hawaiian Islands," Ezra answered. Ah. That explained the American accent.

"So what happened on your eleventh birthday?"

"My worst nightmare," Ezra said. "My parents had always told me I'd go to the finest wizarding school in the world. I just didn't believe them until it actually happened. I had friends, you know. We used to surf and take long hikes in the jungle. There was even an inactive volcano we used to play in."

"That sounds lovely," Ginny said sincerely. 

"My parents hated it," Ezra confessed bitterly. "They always said a proper witch would be reading up on her history, not hanging about with Muggles." She shook her head. "My friends, my best friends, and all my parents would ever call them were 'disgusting Muggles.' Do you know how that made me feel?"

"I can only imagine," Ginny said, unsure of what, exactly, to say. There was a reason she didn't have more friends. Her social skills were almost totally nonexistent.

"Well, my mum and dad went to Durmstrang, so as you can imagine, I was guaranteed admission almost from birth," Ezra continued. 

"It's very cold at Durmstrang," Ginny said lamely.

"Yes. Growing up in the tropics, you can imagine how much I loved the cold," Ezra said dryly. "Durmstrang and I didn't really get along very well. When I was fourteen, there was an incident with the head master."

"What sort of incident?" Ginny asked, insatiably curious despite herself.

"I was found naked in his office," Ezra said in an offhand tone. "My parents were called, Karkaroff denied everything and promptly had me thrown out of the school. Not too long after that, he disappeared after that mess with the Triwizard Tournament, but the damage was done and I was persona non grata at Durmstrang."

"What did you do then?" Ginny asked eagerly, watching as Ezra lit up a cigarette. "You smoke?"

Ezra shrugged. "They say these things will kill you. Here's hoping!" she declared, taking a long puff.

"It just _can't_ be that bad," Ginny declared.

"After Durmstrang," Ezra continued, "there was Beauxbatons. Madame Maxime didn't care for me, either. We spent two years at each other's throats. I finally pushed her too far when I transfigured that awful dog of hers into a balloon animal. It's not _my_ fault Quidditch practice got out of hand that day and a bludger popped poor little Mopsy."

  
"Of course not," Ginny said soothingly. This girl was just so . . . _cool_. From her hair to her attitude to the way she managed to make a shapeless robe look attractive, she was everything Ginny herself was not. 

"Now, with five weeks left before being done with school entirely, I'm found without a school to graduate from," Ezra summarized. "So my parents shipped me off to Hogwarts, their last choice, incidentally -- don't think it didn't gall them to have to throw themselves at Professor Dumbledore's mercy -- and here I am."

"It's really not so bad here," Ginny said softly. "And it's only for a few weeks, right?"

Ezra laughed, a bitter, humorless sound. "Oh, sweetie, it's not the five weeks I'm dreading," she admitted. "It's the lifetime that's waiting for me after they're over."

Having no idea how to respond to that, Ginny suggested they go gorge themselves on breakfast.

~

Breakfast was filled with considerably less drama.

Dumbledore introduced Ezra to everyone and announced that, given the short time she would be with them, Ezra would not be sorted into a house -- instead, she would take the spare bed in the Gryffindor tower (Haley McLayne, a seventh year who'd taken her N.E.W.T.s early, had already left to care for an ailing grandmother). 

This suited Ginny just fine, as she was desperately excited to have a friend of her very own. Ezra sat next to her at breakfast, and they chatted about what things were really like in Hawaii, and Ginny promised to show Ezra around Hogsmeade the next time the school took a field trip. 

Glancing over at the Slytherin table sporadically, Ginny caught Draco looking her way with an unreadable expression on his face. It didn't seem to bother him that she'd caught him looking, either, so Ginny shrugged and went back to her breakfast. He was clearly still in a foul mood and she wasn't eager to try and talk him out of it, anyway. She assumed that when he had something menial and humiliating for her to do, he'd take it up with her straightaway. 

Once breakfast was through, Ginny showed Ezra to the Gryffindor common room, supplied her with the password ("Mary Poppins," which was Hermione's favorite Muggle film, and, as Head Girl, she got to pick the password) and wished her luck on her classes. 

Ginny attended her own classes, and after a morning of Herbology, double Potions, and Divination, she was more than ready for a break. An hour of free time sounded like heaven, and she decided to spend it down by the lake. 

At the lake, however, all her dreams of peace and tranquility fled when she found Draco standing near the water, leaning against a tall oak tree.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding rather testy.

"I've got a free period, haven't I?" Ginny sniped back. "I didn't realize the Malfoys owned the space around the lake."

Glaring at her, he started looking around as if he expected someone to catch them. "Go on, then," he said. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"You can't still be upset about that business with Ron," Ginny said, sighing. "I didn't mean it, not really. Or rather, I didn't mean it the way it came out. You're only an insufferable git some of the time."

He almost looked as though he wanted to smile. 

"So," Ginny continued, "you may as well just forgive me my trespasses, assign me some horrible chore for the day, and let us get on with both our lives." 

"Look," he began, then sighed, running a hand through his hair. He seemed upset, and Ginny had never seen him do anything as careless as muss his hair. 

"Is something the matter?" Ginny asked softly.

Draco laughed, though it wasn't a happy laugh. "Everything's fine. I just -- I got an owl from my father today, and . . . Christ, why am I telling you?" He turned away from her and started pacing again.

"Look, if you really want me to go. . ." Ginny offered hesitantly.

"No, no." He seemed to shake himself. "You're right. I don't own the lake, you've got a free period. You stay. I'll go." He started to walk off and she reached out to grab his wrist.

"Wait," she said softly. "I don't want you going thinking . . ."

"Thinking what, Ms. Weasley?" he asked in a deceptively soft voice. 

"Nothing," she muttered after a moment.

"You don't want me going off thinking nothing?" he asked with an amused tilt to his mouth.

"Do shut up, Malfoy," she mumbled, staring at the ground.

"Listen, why don't you have the day off?" he offered. "You've been a very good slave the past week." Ginny didn't think he'd say so if he'd seen the monograms in his sweaters yet. "Tomorrow you can pick up where you left off. It's Saturday and there aren't any classes. Meet me here for lunch. Charm the House Elves into giving you a picnic to bring with you."

Ginny smiled, then realized she was still holding onto his wrist and abruptly dropped it. Attempting to school her features, she nodded her head, once. "As you like, Mr. Malfoy."

"Draco," he corrected her, then seemed to kick himself when he did. 

"Draco," she said softly. His eyes pulled up to meet hers and their gazes locked and held. _So strange,_ she wrote in her diary later, _how right his name felt on my tongue._

"I have to go," Draco said quietly. "I have something -- I have to go."

He was the first to break eye contact and he left her standing by the lake. Ginny sat down right there on the bank, staring out at the water, wondering what on earth had just happened.

~

When Ginny returned to the castle, she found Harry and Hermione sitting outside on the steps, holding hands, faces tilted upward toward the unusually sunny day.

"Why aren't you in class?" Ginny asked as she approached them.

"Dean Thomas went mad," Harry said mildly.

"He did not go mad," Hermione corrected. "He just had a mild episode--"

"He went mad," Harry insisted, "right in the middle of Potions. Snape actually looked a bit frightened."

"Dumbledore decided that we're all worrying far too much about N.E.W.T.s and final examinations," Hermione continued, "and gave everyone -- students and teachers alike -- the rest of the day off. We've strict orders not to study or work."

"Herm's about to go bonkers," Harry mentioned with a grin.

"Shut up," Hermione muttered.

"So what are you two going to do today?" Ginny asked. "Up for a game of chess?"

"Sorry, Gin," Harry said. "We're going to spend what's likely to be the last day with no class or studying planning our summer holiday."

"But if you'd rather--" Hermione began, but Ginny held up a hand to stop her.

"Please, don't change your plans on my account," she insisted with a lopsided grin. "I'll just go bug Ron. Have fun planning. Maybe a picnic by the lake?" she added, a bit wistfully.

"That sounds nice," Hermione said, brightening noticeably.

"That's my cue to get a basket from the kitchen, isn't it?" Harry asked.

"Just make sure you're nice to the elves," Hermione said with a smile. "And please, do try to remind them of their rights--"

"Yes, yes," Harry said, bringing Hermione's fingers to his lips for a brief kiss. "Mustn't neglect S.P.E.W., even if it is technically defunct."

"Have fun," Ginny said again, waving goodbye to Hermione.

It took her nearly half an hour to find Ron, and when she did, she wished she hadn't. He, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas were playing some sort of game where they ran about trying to hit each other with small rifles filled with paint. 

"It's something my dad does on weekends," Dean explained. "Mum thinks he's nuts, but he says men have a lot of pent-up aggression working as hard as they do, and they've got to get it out somehow."

"Fancy a play, Gin?" Ron called.

  
"No, no thank you," Ginny said as Ron was hit in the face with a shot of yellow paint.

After learning that her new friend Ezra was also nowhere to be found (_I really do hope she hasn't done anything with one of the students or, God help us, Snape_), Ginny decided to spend the day locked in the Gryffindor tower, trying to organize her thoughts in her diary. On the way to the tower, however, she ran (literally) into someone rushing around a corner. They both fell to the ground, the papers he was carrying fluttering around them.

"I'm _so_ sorry," he said as his face came into view above her. Ginny vaguely recognized him and allowed him to pull her to her feet. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," she muttered. "Just a little bruised." She looked at him more carefully. "You're in Hufflepuff, aren't you? Sixth year?"

"Kyle McGraw," he said, holding out his hand, and she heard his Scottish brogue.

"Pleased to meet you," she said. "Ginny Weasley." He held her hand a wee bit longer than casual greeting allowed, and she had to pull it away. "What's all this?" she asked, indicating the papers strewn about the floor.

"Oh," Kyle said, bending down to begin picking them up, "just some drawings I've done."

"You drew this?" Ginny asked, awe coloring her voice as she held up a charcoal of Hogwarts as it appeared from those little boats they brought first year students in on. 

"I know it's not very good," he said modestly.

"Good? It's fantastic. Surely someone else must've told you how fantastic it is."

He looked embarrassed. "Actually, I've never shown them to anyone else. Well, my mother, but mothers don't count. You wouldn't be looking at it right now if we hadn't . . . well."

"I'm very sorry," Ginny said, feeling guilty. "I didn't mean to pry--"

"You aren't," Kyle hastened to assure her. "I appreciate the opinion, believe me." He smiled and Ginny decided he had an honest face. Her mother always used to say that about Harry.

"Are you doing anything today, Kyle?" Ginny asked suddenly. She wasn't quite sure what possessed her, though she suspected it was her good fortune with Ezra earlier. It was long past time she found some friends of her own so she didn't go wandering about the castle like a lost puppy when everyone was busy. 

"Just this," he said, indicating his drawings.

"Would you like to have lunch with me?" Ginny asked.

"I'd love to," he said with a big, foolish grin on his face.

As they ate, they talked more. Kyle told her about his father dying when he was just a boy and how his mother had to raise him all by herself. His mother had been a Muggle, but his father was a powerful wizard who'd given up everything to be with his family.

"Back when You Know Who was terrorizing everyone," Kyle said, "my dad was with the Ministry. My mum was visiting London when You Know Who killed a bunch of wizards. Mum witnessed the whole thing, and my dad was supposed to put a memory charm on her so she'd forget. Instead, he fell in love." Kyle pushed a stubborn lock of hair back behind his ear. "He got in a lot of trouble for it, and the Ministry threw him out. He didn't mind, though. My mum's family owned a ranch outside Glasgow and it turns out my dad loved working the land. They were really happy." Kyle's voice turned sad.

"What happened?" Ginny asked gently.

"There was some sort of curse, left over from his time at the Ministry," Kyle explained. "I was barely two when . . ." He trailed off, and Ginny placed a sympathetic hand over his.

"That's awful," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Kyle agreed. His gaze met hers. "When I got my Hogwarts letter, mum was so happy," he confessed. "Said she'd always hoped I had a bit of dad's magic in me."

They talked for a bit longer and Ginny was really enjoying herself until she realized that, subconsciously, she was comparing Kyle to Draco. Mumbling an excuse about having a headache, Ginny made a hasty retreat from the stairwell they'd been speaking at and headed straight for Gryffindor Tower. Her heart was pounding and it was impossible to believe she'd just met the sweetest boy in the world and couldn't quite stop thinking of the cruelest.

~

Later, in the Gryffindor common room, Ginny had abandoned all hope of writing in her diary (the blank pages were mocking her at this point) and was listening with some interest to the conversation Hermione and Ezra had struck up about the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry and Ron were playing chess in the corner, while Seamus and Dean tried to get paint out of their hair on the couch. Ron said he liked the purple streaks in his. 

"You've really had seven different Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers in seven years?" Ezra was exclaiming.

"And not all of them put together were worth one of Professor Lupin," Hermione stated.

"I thought you were rather fond of Professor Lockhart," Ron said, not looking up from the board.

"Quiet, you," Hermione called out to him.

"Did someone fancy their _teacher_?" Ezra asked, feigning a scandalized expression. 

"Maybe a bit," Hermione admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly. They'd only met a few hours ago, and Ezra already seemed to have pegged Hermione's personality to a tee. 

"But she's completely over it now," Harry called out loudly, also still concentrating on the game. He'd only beaten Ron at chess a handful of times in the past.

"Completely," Hermione agreed.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me," Ezra said. "I've been here barely a day, and already the great love story of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger has been drilled into my skull."

Hermione grimaced. "It's really not all that great. Not to anyone but Harry and I."

"That may have been true," Ezra admitted, "until that little incident in the boy's showers."

"Oh sod it all," Hermione muttered around a groan.

"You've already gotten all the school gossip?" Ginny asked, leaning forward.

"Every word," Ezra confirmed with a grin. "I live for good gossip, it's the only thing that keeps my mind off the dreadful future I've got waiting for me."

"Reminds me a bit of Professor Trelawney, that one," Ron said absently as he took Harry's Bishop.

"Let's just hope she doesn't start predicting our horrible bloody deaths," Harry agreed.

"And if she does, she at least makes them entertaining," Ron said.

"Have you heard anything about Kyle McGraw?" Ginny asked curiously. "Sixth year Hufflepuff?"

A salacious grin spread across Ezra's face. "Dear Kyle is in the top five," she said.

"Top five?" Hermione asked.

"Top five archetypes," Ezra said. "Harry here," she said, pointing at him, "is the best, most loyal boyfriend imaginable, ever attentive and totally coveted, because he has it all: mystery, danger, courageous, honorable, good sense of humor, cute, in an unconventional way -- total package. And it's useless to covet him, of course, because of the aforementioned loyalty."

"That's right," Harry said, though the tips of his ears were turning red, and Ginny could tell he was trying very hard to pretend their conversation wasn't happening.

"Seamus Finnigan," Ezra continued, "makes all the girls laugh harder than any other boy, though he avoids the trap of being a clown. Girls think his good humor is covering up some sort of inner pain and they want to make it better. Draco Malfoy is the bad boy all the girls shouldn't want, but can't help themselves, because all girls think they can fix cruel, dangerous men." Ezra had a look of great distaste on her face when she said this, and it made Ginny wonder if Ezra included herself in the description 'all girls.'

"Malfoy," Ron muttered dangerously, but took it no further and Ginny released a sigh of relief.

"Neville Longbottom," Ezra continued, "is the nice, sweet boy girls end up marrying when they're older, who has absolutely no mystery or danger about him at all, which almost guarantees he won't get a single date until he's thirty."

"Poor Neville," Hermione cooed sympathetically, as Ginny studiously kept her gaze on the tapestry beyond Ezra's head.

"And finally," Ezra said, "we come to Kyle McGraw. The artistic type, always buried in his art. There's a little bit of Neville in him, but not enough to turn the girls off completely. But then there's the other thing about Kyle that all that gives him major points."

"Yes?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"That boy has talented fingers," Ezra said with a leer.

Hermione let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Ginny drew her eyebrows together in confusion. Kyle was a wonderful artist, she knew, so of course he was talented with his fingers. She didn't see why that should scandalize Hermione--

"Oh," Ginny said slowly, realizing what Ezra might mean. "Oh!" she repeated, mimicking Hermione's posture. 

The three girls stared at each other for a moment, then burst into hysterical giggles. 

Ron and Harry exchanged raised eyebrows.

  
"Women," Ron muttered disgustedly. 

"They're not so bad," Harry argued lightly, unable to take his eyes off of Hermione, even though it would probably cost him another match to Ron.

"Whipped," Ron commented sadly.

__

~


	6. Chapter 4: Lust in the Afternoon a

~

Chapter 4: Lust in the Afternoon

~

It was half past one and she had no indication that Draco remembered their date, let alone intended to show up for it.

__

Not date, she corrected herself shakily. _It is not a date. You are his servant and he basically summoned you here. It is most assuredly nothing like a date. _And she most certainly wasn't going to think about how haunted his eyes had looked yesterday, nor was she about to start worrying over how much power his father seemed to have over Draco's state of mind. No, not her, certainly not.

Running a nervous hand through her hair, Ginny wondered, since she was all alone out here, just who she was trying to convince.

The lake was gorgeous, even though the sun insisted on hiding behind a cloud. There was a crisp, delicious chill to the air that seemed to pervade late springtime in England. Even though it was Saturday, Ginny wore her robes to combat the weather and, if she was honest, afford her a layer of protection against Draco.

That boy had certainly gotten under her skin. If only he were in her line of sight. Maybe she'd misunderstood him. Instead of meeting him for lunch, perhaps she was supposed to bring lunchtime food to him at dinner. No, it was obvious he'd forgotten. Of course, she'd been late, having only gotten there at quarter to one. If he'd intended for her to meet him at precisely noon, it was possible he'd been here on time, and then, when she was so atrociously late, he'd assumed she was an idiot who couldn't keep track of time and left.

This was all Ron's fault.

She'd slept in that day for the first time in weeks, having been exhausted from days of foregoing sleep to eliminate any possibility of having another of those disturbing dreams. That, coupled with examinations and doing Draco's Herbology homework on top of her own (_not to mention the SEWING_) and Ginny was ready to collapse most days. Today, however, having gotten ten whole hours of sleep in a row, she'd woken refreshed and fairly buzzing with anticipation over the coming day.

After a quick trip down to the kitchen to fetch a basket full of goodies, Ginny had run back up to the tower to get her Herbology texts. Having Draco's undivided attention out by the lake seemed like a perfect time to get in some tutoring -- it was secluded, so no one would find them there, and if they did, they could pretend they were just having a romantic rendezvous. _Which we aren't, _she hastened to assure herself. _Of course we're not,_ she shot back (somewhat snottily), _because I'm bloody alone out here and I really don't do anything for myself, romantically speaking. _

Once back inside the tower, however, her older brother had appeared, wanting to know just where exactly she thought she was going with the picnic basket made for two. After trying to throw him off the scent with a lame story about her new friend, Ezra ("I just saw Ezra," Ron said icily, "and she's going to have an awfully hard time having lunch with you when she's busy shoving her tongue down Seamus Finnigan' throat."), but Ron would not be dissuaded. Finally admitting to her tutoring session with Draco had only increased Ron's resolve not to let her out of the tower. She only managed to free herself by resorting to emotional blackmail -- "If I don't get help in Potions, I won't get top O.W.L. scores and it will break mum's heart. Do you want to be responsible for that?"

It really was quite a miracle that she'd managed to keep the whole thing a secret from Ron for as long as she had. The whole school was buzzing about Draco and Ginny, but all the students who knew Ron best, his fellow seventh years, were more interested in studying for their N.E.W.T.s than they were in spreading gossip about Ron's clearly insane little sister sitting with those shifty Slytherins. Plus, Ginny thought that everyone was a bit afraid of Ron brutally murdering the messenger in this case. 

The sixth years seemed to have no such fear and were certainly gossiping like ninnies, Ginny had to admit. At least they hadn't begun in earnest until Ron's little outburst at dinner the other night. She'd been passed at least a dozen different notes during classes, ranging from "Are you MAD?" to "What's Draco _really _like?" to "Is it true he keeps shrunken, transfigured Hufflepuff first years locked in a little cage by his bed?"

The latter had been handed down from a terrified looking first year Hufflepuff in the halls. Ginny's favorite note had been from a Ravenclaw fourth year. "So then, is Malfoy as good in the sack as that bint Pansy Parkinson told the whole school he was?" That particular missive had made Ginny blush a deep scarlet and the Ravenclaw girl had just flashed her a conspiratorial grin. Ginny had wanted to chase after her and yell that it wasn't what it looked like, but she was sure denying it so vehemently would only make it seem all the more true.

Besides, that had been the day after she'd had her dream, and the remnants of it forced an inherently honest bone in her body to protest at the fabrication. Perhaps it wasn't _exactly_ what it looked like, but Ginny was beginning to fear it was pretty bloody close.

"Boo," a voice whispered near her ear.

Ginny jumped and spun around to find Draco uncomfortably close to her. "Idiot," she muttered, smacking his arm for good measure.

"Don't, you know how those little pet names make me blush," he murmured.

"Stupid git," she said sweetly.

"Brat," he chuckled, and it almost sounded affectionate. 

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Harpy?" he offered with a raised eyebrow.

"You're late," she informed him. "I've been here for over an hour." A _slight_ fabrication, but he certainly didn't need to know that.

"That's hardly my fault, is it?" he noted. "We never set a time and it's still a reasonable hour to be having lunch."

"Yes, except that the rest of the school has already eaten lunch. At noon when everyone knows they're meant to."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" he asked, sounding somewhat aggrieved.

"You could at least apologize, couldn't you?" she pointed out, exasperated.

"Look, what good would my apologizing do, really?" he said, sounding very logical. "My saying 'I'm sorry' wouldn't turn back the clock so you weren't waiting here for over an hour -- which, actually, seems a little sad, doesn't it? -- and it certainly won't put you out of this foul mood."

"You won't know unless you try, will you?" she said, then frowned. "And hey! It is not _sad_! It simply shows a certain level of commitment. We had _plans_."

"We still do," he said, throwing up his hands. "What did you bring for lunch?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes, studying him closely. She knew very well that he'd intended her to meet him at noon because Draco always took lunch at noon. It was like a preprogrammed response drilled into him from a tender young age. Yesterday he'd seemed almost . . . vulnerable. And now here he was, actually arguing with her instead of ordering her to be quiet. There was obviously something wrong and it was weighing heavily on him. 

He looked so tired, she realized, as she looked him over again. His robes were slightly wrinkled, as though they'd been slept in (or _not_ slept in, as the case might be), and there were dark circles beneath his eyes; they were almost obscenely black against his pale skin. His hair wasn't as perfectly combed and slicked back as it normally was, and she was reminded again of her dream, of the lightly tousled Draco who'd made her head spin and her toes curl and all those other ridiculously silly things she'd always wondered if she'd ever feel for someone who was right in front of her, attainable. 

Draco wasn't attainable, though, she reminded herself again. And she didn't even want to attain him! _Oh, stupid subconscious trying to destroy my sanity._

  
"What?" Draco asked nervously, glancing down at the front of his robes, no doubt wondering if there was something on him. 

__

Oops. Apparently, her perusal of him had gone on for far too long.

"Cold chicken," Ginny said, kneeling down on the blanket she'd brought and beginning to remove food from the basket, "biscuits, marmalade, crackers, salmon and Brie. With some sparkling cider to drink." 

He raised a slightly suspicious eyebrow at her, but didn't push the issue of why she'd been staring at him, for which she was grateful. They ate in a mostly comfortable silence, only breaking it with easy, noncommittal chatter about the weather, or how delicious the food was. Draco had two modes, Ginny was beginning to discover: irritatingly loud or deathly quiet. 

When he was loud, it was usually because he was shooting his mouth off, posturing about arrogantly, things like that. Loud Draco was the Draco most of the school saw and the one that instantly turned Ron into raving lunatic, even though Ron was fairly loud himself. They were different kinds of loud, though. Ron was loud in a jovial, life-of-the-party way; Draco was loud in a booming voice, look-at-me-because-I'm-so-important way. 

That wasn't the Draco Ginny was beginning to feel something for, though. Quiet Draco was so unassuming, had so much going on behind his eyes, Ginny wondered if Loud Draco wasn't -- at least partly -- an act. An old suit he put on because no matter how old or ratty the clothes got, they were still familiar and comfortable and when you needed to feel secure, it was easier than shopping for something new and more attractive. 

Draco's old suit was obnoxious and bigoted, closed-minded and insufferably full of himself. Once, that had summed up Draco's rather two-dimensional self nicely. After the time they'd spent together, Ginny was sure that wasn't strictly true any longer. Over the years, Draco had grown, and while he hadn't gone through a stunning caterpillar-into-butterfly metamorphosis, he'd certainly developed a third dimensionality.

After nearly ten minutes of monosyllabic responses and snotty grunts as Draco's only participation in their conversation, Ginny decided to take matters into her own hands. 

"So what's wrong with you, anyhow?" she asked, then winced at her tone. That had emerged perhaps a tad harsher than she'd intended.

If her tone bothered him, Draco didn't show it.

"It's nothing," he said easily, wiping each of his fingers individually with a white linen napkin. 

"Nothing doesn't hurt so much," Ginny insisted. He glanced up at her and she could hear the silent warning: Don't press me.

"It's just my father," he said. _And leave it at that_ was more than implied.

"What about your father?" she pressed. Weasleys had no common sense. Loads of courage, but absolutely no common sense.

Heaving a sigh, Draco tossed his napkin down. 

"Is there anything I can do to make you drop this?" he asked wearily.

"You could order me to," she said, chewing on her lower lip. 

"Fine," he said. "I order you to drop this."

Ginny nodded, chewing all the more on her lip. She began picking at blades of grass beside her, her gaze caught up in Draco's. He was watching her so carefully, measuring her up. _Does he find me wanting in some way? _What did he see when he looked at her? Too much red hair, more freckles than skin, hand-me-down clothes (vintage, really; she had no sisters and they once belonged to her mother or, when she was really unfortunate, Percy), a Weasley through and through. The Malfoys hated the Weasleys. She couldn't even remember why at the moment. 

"What _about_ your father?" Ginny burst out. She'd really tried not to, but she'd felt like she was going to explode.

"Do you know what the word 'order' means?" Draco asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Draco," she said softly, saying his name out loud for the first time since he'd told her to, "I just . . . I'd just like to help you. If I can." A half smile tugged at her mouth. "Any slave girl worth her salt would do the same."

He almost smiled. Then he seemed to remember what they were talking about and became serious and upset again.

"He's just going on about my future again," Draco said with a sour expression on his face. "Talking about all the great things I'm going to do; things I don't particularly _want_ to do."

Ginny nibbled on her thumbnail. "Evil things?"

"Lots of things," Draco said vaguely, exasperation beginning to color his voice.

"You sound a lot like my friend Ezra," Ginny declared. 

Draco managed to scowl and roll his eyes at the same time. "Don't go comparing me to one of your friends, brat."

"She won't tell me about her awful future, either," Ginny continued, undaunted, "even though I'm sure _Ezra_ would feel better if she'd just get it off her chest." 

"Yes, and does _Ezra_ find your pathetic plays at subtlety as embarrassing as _I_ do?" 

"Ezra does not," Ginny answered primly. 

"Oh, I'm sure she does," Draco said with a sly grin, "she's just trying to spare your feelings."

"Lucky we don't have to worry about you doing that," Ginny said sarcastically.

"I do what I can," Draco declared modestly.

~


	7. Chapter 4: Lust in the Afternoon b

~

"Woman, if you don't let me have at least a minute's peace between hammering these useless facts into my skull, I'm going to toss these books and you along with them right into that lake."

"I don't know how you expect to learn this if you won't study," Ginny insisted, growing extremely fed up with his almost constant complaining. "It's like you're not even trying to read the assignment."

"It's pointless," he insisted, throwing his text book aside. 

"It is not," Ginny said firmly. "You who are so big on Potion-making and how brilliant Professor Snape and his 'art' is," she said mockingly, "should appreciate Herbology a lot more than you do."

"Who says?" he snapped.

  
"They go hand in hand, don't they?" Ginny pointed out. "All the ingredients that go into Snape's precious formulas are exactly what Professor Sprout is trying to teach us about."

"I don't need to know _how_ they work, as long as I know that they _do_," Draco said.

"You really believe that, don't you?" Ginny asked, sounding flabbergasted.

"'Course," he answered, shifting uncomfortably. 

"It doesn't matter to you at all, then, where something comes from, what it's made of, how it got to you?" she pressed. "Just so long as it works?" She was near tears now, but she would be damned if she'd let it show. 

"What's wrong with that?" he asked testily.

"Nothing," she snapped. "Absolutely nothing."

Internally, she was seething. This was exactly why Ron was so worried about her spending time with Malfoy, exactly why Draco and Harry hated one another so much. Their intrinsic belief systems were so deeply opposite that it was a miracle they didn't repel each other like polarized magnets. Could she have been so blinded by her mounting attraction (and she was willing to admit that there _was_ a mounting attraction) for him that she'd manufactured reasons to view him as something other than the mean-spirited boy they'd known for years?

"It's obviously not 'nothing' when you've got a blast-ended skrewt up your arse about it," he pointed out reasonably.

"Fine," she snapped, leaping to her feet. She tossed the apple core she had in her hands at his head and he just barely ducked in time. "You want to know what's wrong? It's you. It's the way you see things, the way you assume you know everything. You look at me and all you see is a little gutter rat Weasley, too poor to afford new clothes, something to . . . God, you don't even pity me, do you? You _disdain_ me and anyone else who doesn't meet your awful, narrow-minded criteria. You're a bigoted, nasty boy--"

  
"Are you quite done?" he asked in an icy voice, jumping to his feet as well. 

"Not even close!" she yelled. "You're so smart. Everything comes so easily to you, you've got _everything_, you never have to worry about security or whether you'll be able to help your family keep from losing their _home_! You're so smart," she repeated around a sob, "and you're so ignorant. How can anyone that smart be so ignorant?"

"I'm not smart," he snapped. "Not the way you think."

"Right," she sad sarcastically, "and you make better marks than almost anyone but Hermione because you're so stupid--"

"I make better marks than almost anyone but Hermione because I've got a eidetic memory," he admitted angrily. 

That brought her up short for a moment. "Then . . . then why have you done so poorly in Herbology?"

"It's not . . . I don't remember things I read, or see," he said, his voice strained, his posture hostile as they glared back and forth at each other. "But when I hear something I remember it perfectly."

"You don't pay attention to what Professor Sprout says," Ginny said, her tone reflecting her sudden enlightenment. "And he never gives us the entire lesson aloud -- he always makes us look it up for ourselves."

"Just wait 'til your seventh year," Draco mumbled. "He assumes you've been listening for the entire six years prior and stops talking almost altogether." 

"Why on earth didn't you tell me this before?!" she burst out, furious again.

Draco seemed taken aback. "What the hell are you mad about now?"

"We've been going about your tutoring all wrong," she said, as though it were obvious. "I've been having you read . . . good God, no wonder you're so bloody moody." 

"_I'm_ moody," he said incredulously.

"Sit back down," she instructed, resuming her seat and grabbing up the textbook he'd abandoned. 

Dumbfounded, Draco sank down to the ground with her, warily watching her. Ginny pretended not to notice, and silently congratulated herself for putting him so off balance. It was becoming frighteningly clear to her the power Draco could have over her if she started liking him, feeling for him, any more than she already did. Given their forced proximity for the next three weeks she was sure there would be nothing she could do to keep these feelings from developing; but she _could_ control just how balanced the power between them was. 

It was hopeless, anyway. She didn't actually think anything would ever seriously happen between them, at least not on Draco's end. What she'd said to him a moment before might have been harsh, but that didn't make it any less true. While he might be amused with her, even tolerant of her, he still saw her as nothing. Less than nothing. A _Weasley_. She was so far beneath him that, from his perspective, she must look no bigger than an ant. Which only meant she had to be exceedingly careful in regards to her own feelings in this arrangement. 

"Professor Sprout likes to make sure you've done the reading," Ginny said aloud, "so we're going to start with _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ and work our way forward."

"When you say 'start,'" Draco began hesitantly.

  
"Abyssinian shrivelfig," Ginny interrupted loudly, "is a Potion ingredient that requires peeling…"

And she continued reading the entire encyclopedia of magical herbs aloud to him as the sun changed positions in the sky. When she got to Devil's Snare (a creeper that fears fire and likes damp, dark environments) she'd just hit her stride and felt she could read all night if necessary. Once she came to puffapods, however (fat pink pods with seeds that burst into flower if dropped), her jaw had begun to ache, her throat was scratchy, her voice hoarse, and her vision was getting a bit blurry. 

Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, Ginny set the book aside and took a sip of sparkling cider, scrunching up her nose at the warm, flat taste. She took out her wand and mumbled an incantation to turn it into water and drank the entire glass greedily. As she reached over to pick the book up again, she was surprised to feel Draco's hand cover her own. Her startled gaze flew up to his.

"That's enough Herbology," he said softly.

"But we've another three hundred herbs and fungi yet," she protested weakly.

"I think I've learned more than enough for one night," he said.

"How am I to know you've really retained any of it?" she asked suspiciously.

"Try me," he offered with a wolfish grin.

  
"Devil's snare," she said.

  
"Creeping plant that likes damp, cold areas; would probably take well to the Slytherin dungeons if it weren't for all the lit torches."

"Puffapods," she said quickly.

"Fat pink pods," he answered just as fast, "just don't drop them or you'll get a lot of ugly flowers."

"Some memory," she declared, impressed.

"I have another task for you."

"What?" she asked warily.

"Close your eyes," he ordered gently.

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

He rolled his eyes. "Just do it, brat."

Taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes and tried very hard not to tense every single muscle in her body. She felt his breath against her chin and nearly jumped out of her skin. When he pressed his mouth to her jaw, she _did_ jump a bit.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, her eyes shooting open.

"You've been reading aloud for hours," he pointed out. 

Glancing around her, Ginny realized that it was dusk, the sun having already disappeared behind the hills that isolated Hogwarts; made it seem like someplace that existed far away from the rest of the world. Draco's hand still rested over hers and he was still close enough that she felt every breath he took puff over her face. 

"Your jaw must ache," Draco continued.

"It does," she agreed, scarcely aware of what she was saying.

"I've got an old home remedy for little aches and pains," he said. "Something my mum used to do for me."

"Oh?" she croaked.

A half grin slipped across his mouth. He pressed another kiss to her jaw, this time, closer to her ear. Her eyes shut of their own volition as he threaded his fingers through her hair and pushed it out of his way. 

"Kiss it 'n make it better," he muttered a second before his lips found hers.

~


	8. Chapter 4: Lust in the Afternoon c

~

__

Haven't written in awhile, been trying to sort out my thoughts before committing them to paper. Have had no luck so I'm just going to let whatever jumbles out, out.

He kissed me. Draco Malfoy kissed me. And it wasn't . . . it was . . .

Damn it.

All right, getting it together now. He kissed me. It was so soft at first, like it was barely happening. I could almost pretend it wasn't. And then it suddenly was happening and in the most intense way possible. His thumb was rubbing the skin between my index finger and my thumb and his other hand was cupping the back of my head, pulling me closer to him. 

I've never been kissed before. I mean, pecks on the cheek from Harry at Christmas and my birthday just don't count, not after this, not even when I was hopelessly in silly love with him. 

It went on for what seemed like hours. When his lips first touched mine, it was dusk and when they parted for the last time, all the stars were out. We missed dinner. I stiffly explained to Professor McGonagall that we were studying and lost track of time; she seemed so proud I wanted to kill myself.

By the time I'd fully processed that, yes, Draco Malfoy was snogging me, my back was pressed against the blanket I'd brought for our picnic and he was lying half on top of me. His hands were gentle, like I'd never imagined they would be and his mouth was so persuasive, asking me silent questions instead of demanding answers. My mind got all hazy and it felt like I was floating and sinking at the same time. 

His hand eventually wandered someplace that frightened me and I tensed up and then he tensed up and we both broke away from each other. Then I did something incredibly stupid:

I panicked.

Whatever he was going to say originally, whatever hurtful, casual brush-off he was going to offer me, I just couldn't handle it. I just know that if I'd heard him dismiss it as nothing, if he'd laughed_ at me I would have simply expired right there on the spot. So I struck first._

"I'm not having sex with you," I'd blurted out. "I know we agreed to possible tasks of a sexual nature, and that's fine, really, but I just can't . . . do_ that with someone I'm not in love with." _

As I watched his face, I had that cotton-y taste in the back of my mouth, the one you're never quite sure about where it's come from. My tongue felt abnormally big, like each word getting out of my mouth was a great challenge. Then, I got a look at his eyes and I think I actually saw them grow cold.

"You know, us agreeing on rules at all -- I don't think that works for me," he said in an icy calm voice. "I mean, you're my slave_, aren't you? That implies a certain level of control on my part."_

"But we had a bargain," I protested.

"They were your terms, Weasley," he ground out before I could speak another word, "not mine." He looked at me, so differently from how he looked at me earlier. I wanted to weep at the difference. "You, on the other hand, are very much mine to do with as I please for the duration of our agreement." His tone was cruel and the intention was written on his face, clear as day. Something went very cold and scared inside me at that moment.

"Please," I begged. I feel so ashamed now at the way I begged him then. At the time, I felt nothing but terror that he wouldn't listen. "You can ask me to do anything, I'll do anything_ that you want, but please don't ask _that._"_

Even as I write this, my cheeks are on fire with mortification. I just had to get all worked up like that over a few kisses that probably meant nothing to him. Jump to ridiculous conclusions faster than a March hare: that should be the Weasley family motto. 

"Fine," he snapped. "If it means that much to you -- it's not like I care. You'd probably just lie there like a cold fish, anyway." 

Then, he left. Just left_. I must have stood there for twenty minutes, hugging myself like a ninny before I finally snapped out of it, magicked the picnic mess together and headed back to the castle. The confrontation with McGonagall was blessedly short and by the time I got up to the tower, everyone else was already in bed. Except for Ron, who'd fallen asleep sitting in a chair, no doubt waiting up for me. I crept passed him and crawled into bed fully dressed, shedding only my robe. _

I felt numb and cold and didn't have the slightest idea what had really happened out there with Draco.

I still don't. But whatever it was, I'm just going to have to put it behind me. I'm also going to have to shove aside these warm, fuzzy musings about Malfoy. That toad Malfoy. When did I stop thinking of him that way? Whenever it was, bad me. So what if he's mildly attractive. So what if I'm mildly attracted. I've just got to start viewing Draco the same way Ron does.

Am left feeling disturbed for reasons I'm not sure I wish to examine.

~


	9. Chapter 5: As You Sort Of Like It a

__

~

Chapter 5: As You Sort Of Like It 

~

Two days after Draco kissed her, Ginny was no closer to figuring out why than she had when it happened.

Ezra was trying to work out a rather complicated binding spell she refused to explain the intricacies of and she and Ginny were sitting out by the lake. Their location only made Ginny dwell all the more on her encounter with Draco, and it caused a whole school of butterflies to let loose inside her belly. 

"You look like shit," Ezra mentioned. 

"Rather feel like it," Ginny admitted. "I just wish this whole bloody term was over with; I can't wait to spend a nice summer at home."

"Not me," Ezra argued. "I hope this year lasts forever. I even sort of like this place; it's a hell of a lot more tolerable than Durmstrang." 

"Aren't you even a little excited to be done with school?" Ginny wondered. "You'll be a fully certified legal witch, capable of doing anything you want."

"You've got the first part right, but I wouldn't count on the second," Ezra said gloomily. "I told you, my life as we know it is essentially over the moment I graduate."

"Yes, but you still haven't told me _why_," Ginny reminded her pointedly.

Ezra heaved a sigh. "You don't want to hear it, girly, believe me. It would absolutely shatter the way you look at the world."

"It can't be all that bad," Ginny insisted.

"What is it about the words 'fate worse than death' that you're failing to grasp?" Ezra wondered as if talking to herself.

"Well I'm never going to grasp it if you don't tell me exactly what's wrong, am I?" Ginny said. In truth, she was hoping to make Ezra feel better about whatever certain doom awaited her; barring that, Ginny was sort of hoping someone else's awful life would make her feel a little bit better about her own. This prompted a speck of guilt in Ginny's mind, but not enough to actually drown out the elation at having someone else's problem to concentrate on, which in itself ignited a new wave of guilt. 

Deciding to focus on her newly developed guilt complex later, Ginny propped her chin up in her hands and gave Ezra her full attention.

"Fine," Ezra sighed. "Haven't you wondered why I've been going through all the men at Hogwarts like they're going out of style?"

Ginny was positive the first response that came to mind ("I just thought you were a slut") would not be at all appreciated, and instead gave Ezra a prodding look.

"I'm betrothed," Ezra sighed at last. "To a perfectly horrible little troll I've known since I was a baby. He used to steal my food!" she cried. "Our families have known each other for generations and they've been waiting ages for a boy and a girl to be born at the right time so our families can join." 

"That . . . that's positively antiquated!" Ginny declared. "Your parents can't just give you away to someone! You've got to have a choice in the matter."

"I have a choice," Ezra snorted. "I can marry The Goblin, or I can spend the rest of my life running from my father's wrath. Not to mention _his_ father's wrath. Though his father's always been a lot more understanding than mine. If his father were my father, he'd probably just lock me away in a tower for the rest of my life. I don't even want to think about what my father would do if I tried to back out."

Having no idea how to respond, Ginny found herself asking, "He's not _really_ a Goblin, is he?"

Ezra laughed, a full-throated sound that Ginny hadn't heard from her friend all day. "No," she snickered, "he's not actually a Goblin. Though I might be more excited by one than I am by him."

"How does this whole thing even work?" Ginny asked after a moment of silence. "I mean, one birthday, did your parents say 'Surprise, you're engaged!' and leave it at that?"

"We've both known since we were very young that we had no choice in whom we were going to marry," Ezra said. "Before we even knew what it really meant to be married to someone, we knew that's how we'd end up. I must say, I've been sort of hoping he'd croak before the big day came, but no luck. If all goes as planned, we get married the day after I graduate."

"The _day_ after," Ginny gasped.

"My mother's been planning the wedding for years," Ezra noted wryly. "So has his. They have tea and eat cakes and force us to sit there and give opinions on an event we both wish would never take place during summer holidays. The whole thing has made us rather bitter toward one another, as if it's each of our faults for being born. I call him the Troll and he calls me the Banshee and we're going to make the loveliest couple, bitter and bickering into old age, don't you think? Our children will hate us."

"That's sad," Ginny said, at a loss for what else to say.

"Yes," Ezra agreed with a resigned tone, "it is." Then, she lifted her head up high and pasted a neutral expression on her face. "But there's no way out, so I might as well make the best of a bad situation."

  
"Are you sure you couldn't talk to your dad?" Ezra gave her a look, then mimicked her throat being cut. "Right, right -- your mum, then?"

"You're so lucky," Ezra commented sadly. "You could talk to your family and say you wanted to make your own choices and they'd probably support you, or at the very least, let you live. Mine would _destroy_ me. So while I might consider myself in love with Seamus Finnigan--"

"In _love_ with Seamus?" Ginny squealed. "I thought you were just using him, like the rest!"

"--it's just not going to happen," Ezra continued in a gentle, but firm voice. "And all the wishing in the world won't change it."

Ezra gave Ginny another sad smile that reflected more pain than bitterness behind her eyes, then gathered up her books and left Ginny by the lake. 

To say that the conversation left her a bit shaken was an understatement. _Poor Ezra._ She could almost imagine Ezra and the 'Troll' she was supposed to marry. Her mind conjured up a great hulking beast like Viktor Krum (who'd always resembled a troll, as far as Ginny was concerned), attending Durmstrang along with Ezra, all buddy-buddy with that creep Karkaroff because everyone knew it was _the_ school to go to for future Dark Wizards. He probably played Quidditch and sacrificed young virgins and had a single long eyebrow. _Poor Ezra_, Ginny winced again.

Ginny was also left in the position of adding a few things to her list of mental priorities. As they stood now, they were:

__

1) Do whatever it takes to become a member of the Order, thus allowing:

a) family to afford food;

b) Fred and George to stay out of jail; barring that, bail money;

c) connections to facilitate fabulous career in journalism;

d) never being forced to wear article of clothing another member of family has already worn;

2) Resist wholly inappropriate attraction to Draco Malfoy at all costs, unless such resistance should conflict with goal 1;

3) Don't let grades drop;

4) Never work for Ministry of Magic, as seems shady and stupid for both hiring Percy, and sacking Dad.

After the conversation Ginny just had with Ezra, she was willing to add the following two items:

__

5) Thank Mum and Dad for never taking the overprotective kick so far as to marry only daughter off;

6) Check to make sure am not betrothed and am in fact free to make my own decisions.

That line of thought naturally brought her back to Draco and she frowned. Free once she'd fulfilled this contract with Satan. Through her own greed, she'd tied herself to Draco Malfoy. Yes, it was only for a month, but it was too uncomfortably close to what Ezra was going through. They were both stuck with someone they didn't like, forced into close proximity to avoid an unpleasant fate. (Granted, Ezra's fate -- death -- was much worse than Ginny's -- not being allowed into the Order -- but Ginny still felt they both had an awful time of it.) 

The biggest difference, Ginny realized, was where each of them came from -- Ezra's family wasn't just taking her choice away; they had, in fact, masterminded the entire arrangement from the onset. Ginny's family, on the other hand, were they to somehow gain knowledge of the pact she'd struck with Draco (_which they never would_), would do everything in their power to stop her from humiliating herself. Then, of course, her father would march over to Lucius Malfoy straightaway and get himself killed trying to defend his daughter's honor.

  
Instead of concentrating on how much this would hurt her family, Ginny focused on how wonderful it would be when she could help out financially. It was worth a month with Draco Malfoy, no matter how awful he was.

Even if she was starting to think that maybe he wasn't _that_ awful after all.

~


	10. Chapter 5: As You Sort Of Like It b

~

__

Thought of starting each entry with 'Dear Diary' then realized am no longer fourteen, nor a prat, so dismissed it and decided to just jump right in, as it were, to the heart of things.

I've been spending some time with Kyle McGraw after classes. We talk about his art and the future and where we see ourselves in ten years. He's always wanted to live in Scotland, to find some way to combine his mother's kind nature and his father's magic with the land they'd both loved so dearly. He hoped to open an art gallery with a back room that showcased the best of the wizarding world's answer to art, paintings that move and the like. 

Kyle's got a lot of ambition and the drive to back it up. He says we (as people, in general) can do anything as long as we set our minds to it. I'd like to think he's right. I hope he's right. It's about the only chance I've got. Kyle says I'm too hard on myself, that I've got my whole life ahead of me with nothing standing in my way. He doesn't see my family's financial straits as an obstacle, because as far as he's concerned, as long as they're alive I'll have all the support I could possibly need.

  
Haven't mentioned Draco Malfoy to Kyle. Once or twice, he asked me why I spent so much time with "that rat" and I mumbled something about Draco being different than he thinks and then quickly changed the subject. 

The thing is, I'm not so sure Draco is all that different than other people think. Maybe I've created a Draco Malfoy in my head that doesn't even exist. Maybe I just wanted to see something good in him so badly, wanted to believe he was complex and tortured, that I overlooked the most simple explanation: he's just an obnoxious, spoilt brat and my refusal to accept this glaring fact is a symptom of my wholly inappropriate attraction to him.

Which brings me back around to Kyle. He's seemingly everything I should want, everything Draco is not. Sweet, kind, considerate, concerned about my well being . . . so why aren't I crazy, knock me on my arse in love with him? Why?

~

Have figured out why I'm not in love with Kyle McGraw. Suicide is now a viable option. Will detail later once hands stop shaking

~

Several things of note happened today.

After classes, Kyle McGraw kissed me. We were sitting in the library, going over our Arithmancy homework, and he just suddenly leaned over and kissed me. It was a rather nice kiss, as kisses go (not that I'm an expert, having only been kissed before by Draco Malfoy -- know what, never mind, I don't want to think about that) -- soft and sweet, and I was certain he meant every bit of it. The only thing wrong with the kiss, really, was me:

I couldn't kiss him back.

Now let me be perfectly clear: I wanted to want to kiss him back. But I couldn't. Something inside of me totally and completely rebelled against the idea, something I can't even name. It just felt wrong to have Kyle's lips pressed against mine. Kyle's my friend, the only friend, other than Ezra, who actually likes me for me, and not because I'm Ron's kid sister. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt him, but I also couldn't lie to him.

The kiss ended when Kyle realized I wasn't participating to the fullest, and he looked rueful and sad at the same time.

"Guess those weren't really 'kiss me now, you big studly man' signals you were sending out, after all," he'd said with a self-deprecating grin.

"Kyle," I tried to say, but nothing would come out, beyond his name. "Kyle," I tried again, but it was no good. Every other word had been wiped from my brain. I felt awful and awkward and like the extra-filthy scum that sticks to the regular scum on the bottom of your shoe; like that slimy stuff that coats the Mandrakes when they're fully grown.

Why didn't I want him to kiss him? Why didn't he make my heart beat faster, and my knees weak, and my whole being become focused on him and his stormy gray eyes . . . 

I'll tell you why: Because Kyle's eyes are GREEN_ and I am totally and utterly doomed._

I think I got out a few more mournful 'Kyle's before he started gathering his books together, mumbling excuses about how he'd promised to meet a friend of his who needed help in Divination. 

Then he did something I will never forget for the rest of my life. Something that really_ should have made me love him, or at least want him a little bit, a little, tiny bit, but it didn't, which caused me to feel even more horrible than I already did. He must have seen how wretched I looked, because he smiled, a crooked, lovely smile, leaned over to me and kissed me on the temple._

"It'll all turn out right in the end," he whispered into my ear. It was like he knew, without really knowing, the source of my confusion and turmoil.

"Will it?" I asked him helplessly. It would seem at that point that my powers of speech returned to me.

"It has to, doesn't it?" Kyle reasoned in his pleasant, comforting brogue as he slid away from the table. "Everyone's rooting for that redheaded girl." 

And then he was gone, before I could thank him for being so decent when he really_ wasn't obligated to. I sat in the library with my chin propped in my hand for maybe a minute before I felt someone sit down beside me again. _

"What have you done to all of my sweaters?"

I knew it was him, too. Damnedest thing, really, but I knew before he even opened his mouth. No one walks into a room like Draco does. He doesn't make a show of himself, he's silent really, like some sort of lean jungle cat stalking its prey. Yet the very minute he arrives, you can tell he's there. Maybe the air shifts for him. Maybe it's a Malfoy family secret.

"You said you wanted them monogrammed," I pointed out, feeling something spark to life inside of me. How strange, that it was almost like getting a second wind whenever Draco spoke to me.

"Yes, with my name_," Draco seethed._

"I've heard loads of people call you every one of those names before," I insisted with a little grin.

He was quiet for a moment and so was I, going over my Potions homework. I've tried to work out just what it is that Draco does to me, seemingly to my entire nervous system, and this is the closest I can come:

It's as though he consumes me so totally just by sitting near me, by making it so I'm breathing in the same air that he is, that every part of me is aware of him, hyper aware, even, to the point that I can concentrate completely on something else, while still giving Draco's presence my full attention.

I don't understand it and I have no idea what it means. Or at least, I didn't use to know what it means. Oh, God.

Then he said, "Was that young Kyle I saw leaving?"

My cheeks had reddened a little. How long had Draco been there? Had he seen Kyle kiss me? My hair falling around my face, I took a chance and looked at Draco out of the corner of my eye. He appeared calm and in control, but when I glanced down at his leg, I noticed his foot was tapping ever so slightly; a sure sign of impatience. Then I looked up at his face and noticed something interesting: his face wasn't moving. Not a tick, not a blink, not the crook of a sadistic sneer. 

  
That sort of stillness just wasn't natural, and when I got a look at his eyes, just as still as the rest of him, I realized something:

Draco Malfoy was furious. Not just furious, either; livid. 

With me.

Perhaps I went too far with the monogram that proclaimed him 'Obtuse Prig.'

"He's not that young," I said, trying to focus on the conversation. "In fact, he's a month older than I am."

"Well, if he's a month older," Draco had said nastily.

"Have you got a point?" I wondered, "or are you just here on an errand of general nastiness?"

"My point," he hissed, leaning in so that his face was pressed against my hair, his mouth near my ear, "is that you've ruined dozens of my sweaters with your pathetic, childish prank."

"I'll fix them," I whispered, unsettled by his nearness, by his anger, by how much I should_ fear him and how much I just didn't._

That in itself was reason enough to be terrified.

"I don't want you to fix them," he muttered, his hand moving to my knee. He parted my robe so that his palm rested against bare skin, then stroked just so. God. I really don't want to think about how it felt, how his hand on me always feels. "I want you to make it up to me," he continued right next to my ear.

__

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I couldn't even say 'Draco' the way I'd said 'Kyle,' for fear that I'd say his name too loudly, or make some embarrassing noise because then, his fingers began drawing little patterns against the inside of my knee and it tickled and I wanted to giggle and hide my face in his chest and it wouldn't have been at all appropriate for me to do either of those things.

"How?" was what I finally managed to choke out.

"Haven't decided yet," he said casually, as though his fingers weren't at that very moment moving higher and higher up my thigh. "Any suggestions?"

"Uh . . . I could bake you a nice cake?"

__

I realize that was possibly the most inane thing I could have said, but I was extremely distracted and trying not to show it even though I'm almost positive he could tell. 

"No, I don't fancy you slipping arsenic into the icing," he said in a dismissive voice. "Don't worry about it. I'll think of something." Then, he took his hand out from under my robe, placed his fingers around my chin and turned my head toward him. 

Though I tried to play it cool, I know I tried to pull away, nervously glancing around the library to see if anyone could see.

"No one's watching," he whispered, stroking my jaw the same way he'd been stroking the inside of my knee earlier. "Nice day outside, who'd be in here if they didn't have to be?" My eyes were closed, but I felt him smile, I swear, I did. "Unless, of course, they had something -- or someone -- much more interesting to do."

I opened my mouth to protest such a lewd (and, honestly, lame) innuendo, but that's when he apparently got it into his head to kiss me and I couldn't think straight when he was doing that, really couldn't think much at all, and I think I might have even sighed in relief, because while I hadn't wanted to admit it, I'd been wanting him to kiss me since he sat down.

Draco was right; the library had been deserted, except for Kyle and me earlier, and Madam Pince was at her desk and couldn't see us where we were, shadowed by stacks and stacks of books. There was a loud scraping sound and I realized it was Draco dragging my chair against his so that he could pull me against him. I was barely in my chair at all, instead sitting sideways between his legs, because of course, Draco Malfoy couldn't sit in his chair properly, no, he always had to sit sideways, all the better to drive a girl out of her mind with his breath on the side of her face . . .

One of his hands were in my hair, angling my head this way and that while he kissed me; the other rested over my stomach, my robes once again parted, his hand beneath the light blouse I'd been wearing beneath them, stroking my belly in these tiny little circles. I fisted one of my hands in his hair at some point and it was like we were mauling each other right there in the library, and I swear, I couldn't get enough of him. My free hand decided that if he could put his hands down my robes, I was perfectly within my rights to return the favor, and let me tell you this: the skin on his chest is so smooth and soft I wanted to rip all his clothes off and rub my face against it, even though, in retrospect, I'm a little disturbed that it felt the same against my hand in reality as it had in my dream.

It was just so intense. He was everywhere, I was breathing him and tasting him and feeling him and I felt like I never wanted to be anywhere else, doing anything else but surrounding myself in Everything Draco. I'm almost embarrassed to realize where things were heading. He felt so angry to me, and while that terrible stillness had left him, there remained such tension in him, tension I was genuinely sorry my infantile temperament had caused. I wanted to ease that tension away, to take the pain and anger that clung to him before I ever got there with it, but I didn't know how, or if he'd let me, or if he even wanted me to.

The hand that had been on my stomach made acquaintance with my left breast, which was quite easy to find in the position we were in, and I moaned into his mouth as he cupped it, pressed myself closer to him. 

I'm fairly certain of what would have happened if someone hadn't cleared their throat.

We both froze, eyes shut tightly, sure that we'd been caught doing illicit things around her books by Madam Pince. There was nothing she hated more than students doing illicit things around her books, with the possible exception of loud giggling in the library.

But it wasn't Madame Pince; it was so much worse than Madame Pince. It was the one person who'd be inside the library when she didn't have to be when it was such a lovely day outside: Hermione.

One of her eyebrows were raised and her mouth was opened in a small 'o' of surprise. I jumped away from Draco as if he'd burned me, then felt cold when I wasn't touching him anymore. I felt even colder when I got a look at his eyes again. If anything, he looked angrier than he had before. I felt guilty and awful and confused and . . . well . . . really turned on.

"Mr. Malfoy," Hermione said in this crisp, scary tone I knew would cause future generations of Granger/Potter children to cringe in terror, "would you be so kind as to give us a moment alone?"

"Girl talk, right, Granger?" Draco sneered. He tried to catch my eye, but I refused to look at him; had no idea what I'd do or say if I was forced to look into the serpent's eyes. "When, exactly, did you turn into a girl? Was it that week I was in the infirmary last year?"

Hermione's lips had thinned and she narrowed her eyes at Draco. "You mean when Harry threw you off balance and you fell a hundred feet off your broom, and only didn't die because he managed to save you?" Hermione said sweetly.

So last year, Draco and Harry's sixth, Slytherin and Gryffindor were once again competing for the Quidditch Cup. Draco and Harry both kept spotting the Snitch at the same time, diving for it, and having to pull out to keep from slamming into one another. They were getting really into it, and not just in the usual 'I hate you, Potter,' 'Yeah, I hate you, too, Malfoy' spitting contest way they usually did -- they were having fun_. Everyone could tell, even Ron who'd taken to commenting during the games with Blaise Zabini. _

It was the longest Quidditch game we'd ever played here at Hogwarts -- Hermione and I were sitting next to each other in the stands, and it went on for nearly seventy-eight hours. The teachers had to bring food up from the castle (and don't think McGonagall and Snape weren't bitter about missing part of the game to do so), and everyone would doze off against everyone else's shoulders from time to time. Thank goodness it wasn't raining. 

Pure dumb luck that Draco lost and Harry won; Harry even said so afterward. He went to visit Draco in the infirmary. I still don't know what they said to each other, but after that, they weren't nearly as arch-enemy-like as they used to be. Draco started to mellow after his fifth year, after some business with his father and Voldemort and something Harry and Ron and Hermione were really vague about. Mostly, they ignored each other. After that game, though, the Quidditch matches got really interesting, because it was like Harry felt the need to play as well as he possibly could to be worthy of playing against Draco, and Draco felt the same. 

At least, that's how I see it. 

Hermione and I talked about it once, and she agreed, which is why she chose to make that particular barb at Draco -- she knew it wouldn't score a direct hit, but would make Draco just irritated enough to leave.

Sure enough, it caused him to push away from the table and glare at her insolently.

"Tell your boyfriend I'm looking forward to the match tomorrow," he said sincerely, "and that I'm desperately sorry he's got such a harpy for a girlfriend."

Hermione rolled her eyes. As soon as Draco was out of earshot, she plopped down beside me, leaned in close, and said "Has that troll put some sort of love spell on you? Because if he has, I swear, I'll have him locked away in Azkaban."

"I wish it were a spell," was all I'd been able to say before bursting into tears.

Now, I'm not normally a hysterical sort of girl; I rarely cry, as, having grown up with six older brothers, I learned at a very young age that I had to be tough if they were ever going to respect me or give me even a shred of independence. But I cried then; I cried and I cried, and Hermione's shock gave way to sympathy, and she wrapped her arms around me and told me it was okay, that everyone would be okay, that she would see to it.

While I was bawling, Hermione offered to tell Harry and Ron that "Malfoy" had been messing with my head and I sprang back from her.

"No!" I said emphatically. "You can't, Hermione, swear it."

"I swear," Hermione said, looking utterly confused. I knew exactly how she felt. "I just . . . I don't understand, Gin."

"It started out as an arrangement," I sobbed in a whisper, so as not to alert Madame Pince. "It was just supposed to be so I could get into this stupid club and he agreed, which was a lot more decent than I ever thought he could be. And then we started spending time together and even though he was a total prat he was also sort of good to me and my skin gets all hot when I'm near him and I can't quite catch my breath. Then he started telling me things he'd never told anyone before and he kissed me and I lost it a bit and tried being in love with Kyle, but it wasn't a serious try, because I know you can't really try to be in love with someone, you either are or you aren't and he hates me, Hermione, not Kyle, but Draco, it's awful because he's so mean to me and he kisses me like he means it but he doesn't because he HATES me and I'm nothing_ to him and oh, Hermione, I think I love him so much."_

Hermione and I have never been really close friends. I've always gotten the impression that she puts up with me for Ron's sake. But she was a real friend to me earlier and for no other reason than I think that she felt bad for me, finally understood where I was coming from (even though I_ didn't even understand) and just wanted to help._

Among other pieces of advice, Hermione pointed out that I couldn't very well mean nothing to Draco if he hated me so much. I imagine that was meant to make me feel better, but instead, I'm left feeling somewhat hollow. I shouldn't love Draco for a thousand reasons and I don't want to love him . . . but I do. And there's some oddly compelling physical attraction between us, and I know he feels it, too, and he clearly hates me for it and for even suggesting this stupid bargain in the first place. I wish I'd never heard of the sodding Order and I wish I'd never heard of Draco Malfoy.

I wonder what he's going to make me do to make up for his sweaters. I wonder when he'll make me do it. I wonder if he'd be able to love me if I were in Slytherin. I wonder if I'd find him so attractive if he were in Gryffindor. 

I wonder if he's ever going to kiss me again and mean it.

~


	11. Chapter 6: Any Given Quidditch Match a

AN: A few of you have asked about _formatting_ holding here at ff.net -- here's what I do: I write in Word, then I save my work as an HTML file in Word, then upload that saved file as html to ff.net. I've never had a problem w/it not saving the formatting. Thanks everyone for all the kind words, they've really meant a lot. :) I hope you continue to enjoy the ride!

~

Chapter 6: Any Given Quidditch Match

~

The mornings before big Quidditch games, Ginny thought, were almost always colder than any other day of the year.

There was such a chill in the air that she could see her breath as she hurried along the massive grounds at Hogwarts. She thought about doing some sort of warmth charm, but Professor Dumbledore frowned upon that sort of thing. He always encouraged the students to be as self-sufficient as they possibly could without using magic. It built character, he claimed.

Albus Dumbledore cared about each and every student at Hogwarts and it showed in the little things. He came to every Quidditch match, bundled in his heavy velvet robes and overcoat to combat the frigid temperature.

Ginny buried her face further into the collar of her own coat, hurriedly making her way down to the lake where she was supposed to meet Draco. His Majesty, as she'd begun to think of him sarcastically, had summoned her via the owl his mother had bought him for Christmas last year. It was an odd note, as though he'd gone through some trouble to make sure no one but her would understand it:

__

Meet me where I first kissed you. Eleven o'clock, before the match. Don't be late.

D.M.

Only Draco, she sighed, could make her catch her breath with his first sentence, and cause her to scowl with his last. Of course she had no intention of being late, because she'd already ticked him off enough this week as it was. She hoped her penance for the sweaters wouldn't be too humiliating. 

Hoped, that is, but wasn't holding her visible breath.

Just before a person reached the lake, there was a small hill you had to climb; one that, if you were to lay on top of it, flat to the ground, you could observe the whole of the lake below without being easily observed by anyone near the water. And so, even though it was blindingly cold, when Ginny saw Draco down by the water, his back to her, she was seized by an uncontrollable urge to catch him unaware, just for a little while.

Flattening her body to the ground, she rested her head against her folded arms and allowed herself the guilty pleasure of observing Draco Malfoy.

He seemed alert in a lazy sort of way, like he always did. It took her a moment to realize why he was facing the way that he was, and when she did, she wondered what it meant. His posture was facing toward the school, toward the path she normally took to the lake. Today, because she'd wanted to wish Harry luck before the match, she'd detoured to the Quidditch field long enough to do so, then crossed around to the lake. 

  
A look of intense concentration etched itself on his face, as though he were willing Ginny to come into view. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of the pants he wore beneath his Quidditch robes (_God he looks so good in green, even if it is Slytherin green_) and his shoulders were slouched slightly as though carrying a heavy burden. 

  
Draco looked tired, she realized. The arrogance that normally clung to him like a second skin seemed totally eradicated in the face of his fatigue. _Hasn't he been sleeping properly?_ Ginny shook her head. This whole being in love with Draco Malfoy business had certainly played havoc with her priorities. Whether or not Draco Malfoy was getting the required eight hours a night should not have been foremost in her mind, yet, as she watched him, it was nearly the only thing she could think of, save the irrational desire she had to crawl into bed with him and gently rub his back until he fell asleep.

Glancing down at the watch Harry and Hermione had given her for Christmas the year before, Ginny sighed. One minute after eleven. She knew she should approach this meeting today with some degree of contrition, but all she seemed able to muster was the perverse need to push a few more of his buttons. When he was angry with her, it made her feel awful in a way that had nothing to do with fear, but it was still better than when he looked at her as if she wasn't there at all. She would never be the girl he loved, but at least if she became the girl he hated, he would not remain indifferent to her. Surely being something -- even something bad -- was better than being nothing at all.

Picking herself up, Ginny made her way down to the lake. He was leaning against the giant tree near the water now, staring out at the stillness, but he didn't fool her. He'd no doubt heard the leaves crunching beneath her feet, signaling her arrival. He hadn't wanted to be caught waiting for her with anything other than bored detachment, and Ginny hid a grin. 

"You're late," he noted crisply.

"Surprised you noticed," she pointed out. "Only a minute, after all. Desperate to see me?"

"Hardly," he scoffed, "just miserably cold and ready to get out to the Quidditch field." 

The easy, obvious way he said it wiped any mirth right out of Ginny's head. She was curious whether or not he'd bring up what had happened between them in the library; she wondered if she'd have the courage to. Somehow, she doubted it.

"Well, get on with it, then," Ginny muttered. "You're not the only one freezing his bum off."

"And a lovely bum it is," he murmured appreciatively, casting his gaze over her rear end.

"Shut up," she mumbled, casting her eyes downward, her cheeks flushing. What she really wanted to chastise him for was saying things he didn't really mean. "What's my punishment to be, then?" she asked crisply after a moment of silence. "A thousand lashes with your Firebolt Deluxe? Confinement in the Malfoy family dungeons? Sponge bathing Crabbe and Goyle?"

"Not even I'm that cruel," he declared, sounding offended. "Besides, you know I don't see much of Crabbe and Goyle anymore."

"Right. I'd forgotten." She hadn't forgotten, of course. It was one of those things she'd noticed about him when she'd started really paying attention to the little details of his life. In truth (and she would be truthful with herself, at least) she hadn't been nearly as upset by the Order's mandate as she'd convinced herself of at the time. Draco Malfoy had been at times a source of great humiliation and endless fascination. 

"You seem to forget a great many things," he said, and his eyes had grown cold again. It suited him, she thought numbly; the cold complemented his features, removing the humanity from the man, leaving only icy, painful beauty. The expression on her face must have telegraphed her confusion to him, because he moved closer to her, his countenance darkening. "Part of our agreement clearly stated that you would be mine exclusively."

"Your servant," she corrected quickly. It caused her physical pain to think that he could refer to her as _his_ and feel no more affection for her than he did his broomstick, or any other of his possessions. 

"Regardless," he ground out, "your being my _servant_ implies that your personal time is no longer your own -- it belongs to me. Everything you are belongs to me--"

"For another week!" she cried.

"More like ten days," he rejoined childishly.

  
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Fine. Ten days, then. After those ten days have expired, however--"

"It's of no concern to me how you conduct yourself after our bargain has been fulfilled," Draco interrupted icily. "I am only troubled with my own interests."

"What are you getting at?" Ginny wondered, thinking this couldn't possibly be all about the sweaters.

"This is about you fawning over a Hufflepuff sixth year when you were supposed to be working on your Potions homework with me," Draco snapped.

Her brows drew together in consternation. "But Potions homework is just a cover. It doesn't matter who I study with and Kyle needed the help--"

"What in bloody hell could you possibly see in a useless git like Kyle McGraw, anyway?" Draco ranted. "He follows you around like a trained puppy, hoping you'll pat his head and give him a treat." 

"It's not like that," Ginny insisted. "We're just friends."

"I don't make a habit of snogging my friends in the library," Draco said firmly.

"No, just your servants!" she snapped before she could stop herself. No four words had ever felt so freeing and so humiliating at the same time. Part of her wished she could take them back, and part of her wished she'd said more before coming to her senses.

He moved even closer to her then until their robes touched and she had to dig her fingernails into her palms to keep from touching him. 

"I don't understand," he whispered, his voice low and even, "how you can respond to me the way you do, how you can burn like steel to flint, then cozy up to that idiot McGraw as though he's got even the foggiest notion of how to please you."

"Well," she mumbled, having trouble catching her breath, her brain short circuiting, "there's the fingering."

His eyes narrowed unpleasantly and Ginny quickly checked her memory to find out what she'd just said. Her mouth opened wide in shock when she did.

"I mean -- that is, I _hear_ he's, um, quite . . . adept! -- in certain areas and, erm--"

"You certainly seem to know an awful lot about your _friend_," Draco noted, sneering in distaste. "I don't know half as many interesting things about my friends."

"Perhaps that's because you haven't got any!" she muttered, pulling away from him. Hot, desperate humiliation coursed through her nervous system, forcing the harshest words she could imagine from her lips. "I realize it's hard for you to imagine, _Malfoy_, but not all of us can simply turn our emotions on and off. We can't pretend we don't feel things for others simply because it's inconvenient." Tears were pricking her eyes. It was beginning to hurt to be around him. This was why denial had been such a dear, dear friend to her -- denial meant she could fulfill their bargain at no expense to her heart. 

"I forbid you to see him -- or any other boy --"

"_Fine_. For the next week, I won't see him. And the very second our arrangement is over, I promise you, I'll head over to Kyle McGraw straightaway and spread--"

His hands closed around her arms like bands of steel and he shook her once, sharply. "You shouldn't promise things you're incapable of delivering on, you stupid little girl," he hissed, shaking her again. 

"What do you know about what I'm capable of?!" she shouted back.

"You're biting off a sight lot more than you can chew, I know that. You use the way you look, the way I'm attracted to you as a weapon -- have done from the beginning, I realize now."

"What are you on about?" she asked, genuinely confused. 

He released his grip on her arms so quickly that she nearly tumbled to the ground. A muscle ticked in his jaw and he turned away from her.

"You should have more respect for yourself than you do," he muttered, and it seemed to Ginny that he wasn't even talking to her anymore, was instead ranting to himself like a crazy person. "More respect for your body and, so long as our arrangement is in place, for me."

"Good God, _he_ kissed _me_! And it was just a harmless little kiss at that! It didn't mean anything!" Ginny wasn't sure why it was so imperative that she make this abundantly clear, but it was. 

"Right," he chuckled humorlessly. "That's why you've been spending all that time with McGraw, walking to and from classes, snuggling up in the halls like a pair of besotted wombats." 

"Wombats?" Ginny repeated absently.

"I know how hard this week's been for you," Draco continued, "having finals and all. I was trying to be nice and not give you any additional work on top of your normal duties."

"Oh, yes, very generous of you to let up on the slave labor," Ginny noted sarcastically.

"And how do you thank me?" Draco continued, ignoring her. "By spending every free moment _I've_ given you, not studying, as I'd intended, but mooning over Kyle McBleedin'Graw!"

"We take most of the same classes!" Ginny burst out. "And he's nice--"

"I don't want to hear it," Draco said obstinately.

"Oh, you silly git," Ginny muttered, "just let me--"

"I said I don't want to hear you going on about him!" Draco yelled. 

  
"So you won't even let me explain," Ginny said, disbelief coloring her voice.

"I have no interest in your explanation," Draco said coolly. "I don't care _why_ you did what you did, it only matters to me that you did it." Then, he moved toward the large tree by the water and extracted a garment bag from behind it. "This is your punishment."

Ginny narrowed her eyes. "My punishment is a garment bag? Am I to climb inside and let it suffocate me?"

He actually rolled his eyes at her, which gave her a little jolt of amusement -- Draco Malfoy did not take to rolling his eyes. Sneering was about the only outward display of disgust he ever demonstrated, and an eye-roll from the guy that usually played things cool as a cucumber made Ginny feel at least a little smug.

"No, idiot," Draco said lazily, "you're supposed to wear what's inside it."

She didn't see what was so bad about that.

"At today's match."

Ah. Still, not as horrible as it could--

"And you're going to have to think of something to, oh, cheer while you're wearing it."

"I hate you."

"Oddly enough, I'm prepared to live with that."

Then, Draco unzipped the bag and pulled out her new outfit. Ginny wished, more than anything, that the earth would open wide and swallow her whole.

"I . . . that's not -- I mean, I can't -- I _wouldn't_ -- I'll freeze to death!"

"No you won't," Draco argued calmly. "I've already put a warmth charm on it. You'll be exuding gentle warmth a centimeter away from your skin. A frostbitten slave is a useless slave, after all."

For a moment, she actually contemplated arguing with him. Surely if she begged enough he'd let up on this punishment. One look into his serpent's eyes sealed her mouth shut. There would be no bartering, no pleading -- he wasn't likely to find either amusing and she sensed she'd tested his patience enough for the day.

If only he loved her back, she thought, she could experiment with all the different ways she could test his patience.

Shaking herself a little, Ginny snatched the garment bag from Draco's hand, and, with an undignified 'hmph' of outrage, she disappeared behind the tree to change. A few moments later, she re-emerged and couldn't stop herself from folding her arms across her chest self-consciously.

It was a lovely costume, certainly, if she'd been a dancer. Drawn in flowing shades of Slytherin silver and green, it seemed tailor made for her. The bodice was little more than a bikini top, thin spaghetti straps holding up the pure silver velvet with a sheer, loose green scarf that covered -- but did not obscure -- her midriff, leaving her back almost completely bare. Even worse was the skirt, a long silk number done in Slytherin green, perfectly molded to her hips that, seeming so elegant on first glance, proved to be less than ladylike. When she walked, twin slits up the side of both her legs, nearly to her nonexistent panty-line (Draco had left a note inside the bag, instructing her that all undergarments were to be discarded) asserted themselves with gusto. On her feet, she wore flat silver slippers. 

  
Dimly, Ginny thought it might make a lovely costume for a masquerade, that is, of course, if she decided to go out dressed as a whore.

"I cannot wear this in public," she said in a choked voice, tears springing to her eyes.

"But you will," Draco said, his voice like steel. He walked toward her and placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs gently tracing her clavicles. "You'll wear this little outfit and you'll be perfectly aware of your body all day. And hopefully you'll learn not to betray me as you cheer me on to victory."

"I didn't--"

"And remember," he interrupted, "if I lose this match, Ginny, I'll need to be consoled. So root extra hard."

Her eyes widened, grasping the full extent of his meaning, "But . . . but we had a--"

"A bargain? I believe I already mentioned how unsatisfactory I found our bargain. Besides -- I am, after all, but a spoilt rich brat who can't keep a promise." 

"I hate you," she whispered again, tears gently spilling over onto her cheeks. Oh, how she wanted to hate him, wanted this -- _humiliation_ -- to hurt less. "You can't . . . I told you before, you can't ask me to--"

"Ginny," he murmured gently, brushing her tears away, "you beautiful, silly girl." Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, his hands skimming over her bare back. She caught her breath a little at the contact and was so busy trying not to tremble, she barely heard what he whispered into her ear.

"I'm not asking."

~


	12. Chapter 6: Any Given Quidditch Match b

~

The game was a blur. It didn't help matters that it seemed to be over almost as soon as it began.

Ginny sat in the Gryffindor stands, as Draco had instructed, wearing her little costume that caused Hermione to do a double-take, Ezra to give her a 'What the hell is wrong with you?' eyebrow lift (Ginny, of course, responded with a patented 'Leave it alone, I'll explain later' head shimmy) and Seamus Finnigan to leave his place by Ezra's side and rush over with his overcoat, attempting to cover her up. She shoved him away, gave him a warning glance, and, once he was firmly entrenched next to Ezra, heaved a great sigh. 

Draco's meaning had been clear -- either he won this match, or she would be required to sleep with him. What made the situation so impossible was how much she _wanted_ to sleep with him, but only if he wanted to sleep with her. Having angry, meaningless sex wasn't exactly her top priority, especially considering it would only be meaningless to one of them.

Both teams began flying out, Ron and Blaise fighting over their microphone as they introduced each player to the crowd. When Blaise energetically called out, "And the Seeker for Slytherin, Draco Malfoy!", Ginny put her hands on her hips and, in the most cheerful voice she could muster, chanted:

"Draco, Draco, he's my man

If he can't do it  
Some other bloody twit probably can!"

From the air, Draco made a point to clip by the Gryffindor stands, glaring at Ginny. The look he gave her made her squirm a little and, remembering the consequences should Draco feel uninspired to win the match, she sighed deeply again and, in a much less upbeat voice than before, tried to make up a better cheer:

"Draco, Draco

He's my hero

He'll beat Gryffindor

He's no weirdo!"

"It doesn't seem she's put an awful lot of thought behind that cheer," Blaise noted from the commentator box.

"Shut up," Ron snapped, and Ginny could feel him glaring at her.

"You shut up, you great annoying git," Blaise snapped back.

  
"Children, we are not here to bicker," Professor McGonagall scolded them.

"Sorry," they mumbled in unison, not sounding the slightest bit sorry at all.

After a bit more posturing, the teams took to the air. The same tension that always existed during Gryffindor/Slytherin matches was present, but there was an undercurrent of additional excitement to the game, as if everyone was perfectly aware more than just the Quidditch Cup was riding on the outcome. 

Which was ridiculous, Ginny knew, as her virtue couldn't be of any importance to anyone outside her family. Perhaps it was the slightly hysterical edge that entered Ron's voice as soon as he got his first good look at what his sister was wearing. Maybe it was the dialogue Harry and Draco seemed to be sharing mid-air, an almost comical bickering session that made it look as though they'd both forgotten they were supposed to be looking for the Snitch.

Blaise was the one who finally called them on it, and, looking sheepish, both Seekers flew away from one another and resumed their job scanning the sky. Ginny had never been particularly adept at flying. She could get by, certainly, but never had she been able to achieve even a tenth of the speed and precision Harry and Draco demonstrated during a game. What freedom it must offer them, she thought as she watched them swoop and fly; what peace. 

It was barely an hour into things when it happened. 

Harry pulled his trusty Firebolt into a nosedive and started heading straight for the ground. Draco, realizing Harry's intent, brought his broom around. He glanced in Ginny's direction, and that's when she saw it: the Snitch was hovering near the Gryffindor stands, a few feet from her. Draco was closer. It didn't matter how fast Harry flew -- Draco was closer.

His gaze on Ginny's the entire time, Draco flew toward her, toward the Snitch, then when he was a few feet away, stopped. He was totally still, hovering in mid-air, watching her with such intensity that heat flooded her body, and she was positive it had nothing to do with the warmth charm.

There was riotous applause all around and still, Ginny stared at Draco. Harry must have caught the Snitch. Blaise was yelling something about the Slytherin Seeker being under some sort of spell and Ginny wanted to laugh out loud, because if anyone had been put under a spell here, it was her. She was about to willingly be dragged off to Draco Malfoy's bed; was, in fact, half looking forward to it. And she was blindingly, stupidly in love. Surely such desperately foolish thoughts were the result of an enchantment. It was the only rational explanation.

Slowly, Draco sank to the ground. Ginny looked down on him from the stands. He tilted his head to the side and she nodded, almost trance-like, in response. He wanted her to meet him where he'd left her, by the entrance to the grandstands. 

She barely remembered making the trip down. Her heart was pounding almost painfully inside her chest and she couldn't decide if she was terrified or excited. Perhaps a bit of both. It was everything she could have dreamed of, being so totally in love with the first boy she would ever sleep with; and it was her worst nightmare, being manipulated into bed with a boy who didn't care about her at all. 

"What was all that, Malfoy?" she heard Harry say as she approached the spot Draco had left her at. The two Seekers were standing close to each other, Harry gesturing emphatically. "You intentionally lost!" he was saying. "Are you daft?"

Draco seemed almost amused by the conversation until he caught her approaching out of the corner of his eye. Then, his expression changed; darkened. Harry turned his head to see what Draco was looking at and nearly had a heart attack, as far as Ginny could see, when he got a look at her.

"Gin?" he mumbled helplessly.

"You think I lost, Potter?" Draco murmured, reaching a hand out to Ginny. Against all the logic in her head she took it and let him pull her to his side. "I've got the bloody golden ring." 

Then, he tugged her along after him as he stomped off toward the castle. Ginny looked back over her shoulder at Harry, who was staring after them totally dumbfounded. 

'Don't tell Ron!' she mouthed at him over her shoulder, and hoped with every fiber of her being that he understood.

~

"Where's Ron?" 

"Hello to you, too," Hermione said dryly as Harry began pacing the floor of the Gryffindor common room like a confused, enraged tiger. "He's in Dumbledore's office. Seems he was in such a big hurry to get out of the commentator's box after the match that he flailed his arm about like a loon and accidentally broke Blaise Zabini's nose. He's getting a lecture on the importance of being aware of one's own actions, even in times of crisis." She watched the humor flit across Harry's face and couldn't help but grin a little. "This has something to do with Ginny, I take it."

"Do you have any idea where she is at this moment?" Harry asked, flailing his arms about, no doubt exactly as Ron had when Blaise had her unfortunate accident. 

"Down in Draco Malfoy's lair, I'd imagine," Hermione guessed with a grin.

"She just left with him!" Harry exploded. "She didn't even try to resist! And she was wearing -- it was . . ."

"I thought she looked gorgeous," Hermione noted absently. "A bit underdressed for a game, but lovely nevertheless."

"Herm, you wear more clothing to bed during the summer," Harry muttered.

Hermione bit her lip and tossed a saucy look in Harry's direction. "No, I really don't, do I?"

Harry moved toward her for a moment, then shook his head. "No, no, I can't get distracted. Ginny's . . . she's . . ."

Sighing, Hermione set down the quill she'd been writing with and stood up from the desk. "Exactly where she wants to be," she said sadly.

"But she's with _Malfoy_," Harry spat.

"I didn't say she was sane," Hermione muttered.

"What do I do?" Harry asked after a moment of silence. "How do I . . ."

"You can't fix it, love," Hermione said gently. She took his hand and led him to the couch by the roaring fire. The common room was empty, every Gryffindor who'd been at the game earlier heartily celebrating their win. 

"But . . . what do I tell Ron?"

"Nothing," Hermione said firmly. "It's not his business, anyway."

"But he's my best friend! And his sister is off doing God knows what with a boy Ron's hated his whole life!"

"It doesn't matter if Ron hates Draco Malfoy," Hermione said, "it only matters that Ginny _doesn't_."

"She's not . . ." Harry gulped. "She's not . . . _in love with him_," he whispered the last part of the sentence, as though fearful of saying such a thing at a normal volume.

Hermione made a little face. "Do you want me to lie to you?"

"Yes," Harry said immediately.

"She's not in love with him," Hermione said easily. "It's a bad boy phase, and once she's got it out of her system, she'll marry a nice young boy we'll be more than happy to have over for holidays."

"Good," Harry said, nodding his head. Hermione brought her hands up to his hair and gently began sifting through the thick dark locks. She did love his hair. His eyes shut and she smiled as she watched some of the tension ease out of his body. "But," he said, almost sleepily.

"Leave it alone," Hermione suggested softly. "It's Ginny's mess and it's up to her to get out of it. She's a big girl now." She brought her other hand up to gently trace his features, removing his glasses as she did so. "Besides," she added, a touch of affront in her voice, "you and Ron don't spend nearly this much time worrying over me."

"Herm, you know you've got your head on a lot straighter than Ginny does," Harry pointed out, his words slurred due to her ministrations. "You're the one always bailing us out." 

"Hmm," Hermione said noncommittally. 

Harry forced one of his closed eyes open. "Problem, Herm?"

"Sometimes a girl likes being fussed over," Hermione said quietly. "Sometimes she even likes being reminded that she isn't infallible, and is as capable as the next girl of making foolish choices with her heart."

Though he was probably exhausted, Harry wrapped both his arms around Hermione and hauled her protesting form onto his lap so that she sat sideways against him, cradled securely to his chest. He pushed the curly dark hair back from her face, took her cheeks between his palms, and kissed her once, soundly.

"Herm, you've already made one foolish choice with your heart: you're with me, aren't you?" He grinned a little. "I'm always getting myself into trouble and you're always tagging along after me so I don't get my idiot self killed. Being friends with Ron and me is the rashest thing you've ever done and I wouldn't have it any other way." 

"That's a good point," Hermione said seriously.

Harry narrowed his eyes at her, and they both lost it at the same time, exchanging giggles for kisses until the common room filled up with noisy, chattering Gryffindors.

Then, they retired to Hermione's room. Because, as Harry whispered into her ear as they climbed the stairs toward the Head Girl's private quarters, her fastidious, responsible nature afforded them the luxury of being as wicked and rash as they liked without fear of being caught.

Hermione genuinely hoped that, for Ginny's sake, Draco _was_ different once you got to know him. Because she'd seen the other girl's eyes when she'd confessed how much she'd loved him; Hermione recognized that look. It was the one she saw in the mirror every morning when she thought of Harry still snoring softly in the bed behind her.

~

"I can't sleep _here_!" Ginny hissed. "What happens when all the other boys come to bed? They'll see me and call Professor Snape and I'll be thrown into the dungeon with a thousand points taken from Gryffindor!"

"Don't be stupid," Draco said lightly, "the curtains come down." Ginny was about to point out that he wasn't refuting her fear about Snape, but before she could get a word out, Draco picked her up and tossed her onto the bed. Too stunned to speak, she merely watched as he climbed in after her and muttered an incantation under his breath.

The dark green velvet curtains fell around the large four-poster bed instantly, cocooning them inside. 

"There," Draco declared, "that's cozy."

Ginny had no idea what she was supposed to say or do, so she said and did . . . nothing. She remained flat on her back where she had landed, stiff as a board, her mind racing. It was obvious, of course, that she didn't really _have_ to be here -- all she had to do was say no, walk out, and he couldn't stop her. She knew he _wouldn't_ stop her. Word would get back to the Order that she'd failed her test, of course, but that was the only consequence if she simply got up and walked out now. 

Really, her big problem was how much she _didn't_ want to leave. 

Her mind and her heart were all jumbled up, bickering back and forth with one another. She couldn't even say that her heart was one hundred percent sure she should stay, because her stupid heart only wanted to stay if Draco loved her back, which he clearly did not and never would. Was he even capable of it? 

On their way back up to the castle, Ginny noted that it had started to rain softly. Her warmth charm had kept her body dry, but not her hair, which was damp. Draco had gotten fairly soaked and, if she wasn't mistaken, was at this very moment taking off his shirt--

Averting her eyes, Ginny's breath caught in her chest. More rustling and she could imagine him there beside her completely naked, like pale marble. She wanted to turn around and drink her fill of him and at the same time, wanted to bury her head beneath the covers. The candelabra above Draco's bed was lit, casting a soft glow off the sides of the curtains. Turning onto her side, Ginny hid her face behind her hair and peeked at Draco.

His skin _was_ like marble, but looked infinitely softer. His damp hair had fallen into his face, making him, for once, look like the seventeen year-old-boy that he was. Her gaze traveled lower and settled upon his abdomen, which bore a precise, awful looking scar from just below his ribs to the jut of his hip bone. For some reason, she was unable to look away from it, fascinated, horrified by where he might have gotten it and why he hadn't had a doctor remove it. There were any one of a dozen spells that could--

He was staring at her. He couldn't see her eyes through her hair, she knew, but it was as though he felt her gaze on him. Glancing lower, she saw that he'd put a pair of pajama bottoms on, green silk, a serpent through and through. Burying her face in the pillow, she wondered if it were possible to feign sleep, if there was any chance that he might leave her be.

Somehow, she doubted it.

The bed shifted and she tensed. His hand moved to her back and began gently stroking over her skin, his touch almost soothing. His hair tickled the back of her neck a second before she felt his lips press to the very tip of her shoulder blade. His mouth was the softest thing she'd ever felt and now he was brushing it against her skin, over her shoulder, her arm, the center of her spine just above the thin strap of her bodice. 

It felt so incredible, how tender he was being with her, so perfectly seductive that it brought tears to her eyes. His hands prodded her hip gently until she turned onto her back, making no move to remove the hair from her eyes. He pulled the loose silk scarf free of her bodice, gently running it over her shoulders. The cool, silky material evoked a shiver. Then his hands were at her face, pushing her hair back, and she shivered again and again, until she realized she wasn't shivering but crying softly, the effort of remaining quiet with it causing her body to shake. 

She might be able to survive this night if he were demanding, but this gentleness, this caring he was showing her would shatter her like glass. 

"Shh," she realized he was whispering, brushing her hair back, his touch soothing and gentle. This only made her cry harder. 

"I can't . . . I can't," she began hiccuping. 

"You don't . . . I thought you . . . I really thought that . . ." He seemed unable to decide what he wanted to say, which was odd, she knew, but couldn't seem to really care about. He was holding her like she mattered to him and it was comforting her as much as it was killing her. "I would never force you to do something you really didn't want," he said finally, his voice hushed and rough. 

Again, she tried to speak, and again she could only seem to cry harder. Why couldn't he just be awful and make her hate him?

"Do you think me a monster?" he whispered into her ear after a long bead of silence. Try as she might, she could not quiet her tears.

"No," she whimpered.

"Don't lie to me," he muttered harshly.

"Draco, I don't," she insisted. He didn't understand why she was crying, she knew, and there was no way she could explain it to him without leaving her own fragile heart vulnerable to his derision and scorn. How strange that she should fear his hurting her so much, and yet she was equally desperate to keep from hurting him. Why should her opinion of him matter to him, one way or another? So what if she believed him a monster?

And yet, it did matter. It mattered to Ginny that Draco believe her. 

"I don't think you're a monster," she whispered firmly, and it was then that she realized her hands were fisted against his bare chest. 

  
"Fine," he muttered, his voice harsh again. "You should go." 

Nodding, Ginny began to pull away from him, then froze. It sounded like a door opening . . .

"Bloody stupid wanker," a voice was saying. "Can't believe Malfoy let Potter snake the Snitch from him like that."

"Did you see the way he was looking at that stupid Gryffindor girl?" another voice wondered.

"That's the girl who's been following him around lately, cutting up his meat and the like," yet another voice added. "She must be in love with him."

  
Ginny tensed and heard Draco chuckle mirthlessly. "It stuns me how stupid they are sometimes," she thought she heard him mutter. 

There was a chorus of 'G'night's from the boys outside, then all was quiet again. 

"What do I do now?" Ginny whispered, her face pressed close to Draco's. It made sense, she tried to reason with herself; the closer they were, the easier it was to hear each other. It certainly had nothing to do with how much she enjoyed feeling his breath against her cheek. 

"Settle in for a good night's sleep?" Draco offered. 

  
"I can't sleep _here_ in _this_," she hissed, indicating the harem-girl costume she was wearing. 

"Wear this, then," he murmured, reaching around her to where he'd left a sweater he must have gotten out when he put on his pajama pants. 

It was one of the sweaters she'd personally monogrammed. 'Ignorant Brat' it read, and she flushed a little. Draco seemed amused.

  
"Appropriate for you, isn't it?" he murmured, his mouth tilted up at one corner. 

Ginny held the sweater to her chest and stared at Draco. "Do you mind?" she asked after a moment, gesturing between her body and the sweater.

"Not even a little bit," he assured her, making no move to turn his back.

Sighing deeply, Ginny turned her back to him then reached behind her to undo the clasp on her bodice. No matter which way she pulled and tugged, it just wouldn't come undone. The bed shifted and she felt Draco against her back, his breath hot against her neck.

"Sorry," he murmured, whispering yet another incantation. His fingers undid the clasp easily, the very tips of them trailing over her skin a bit longer than necessary. "A charm. Didn't want some other bloke being able to get you out of this."

Having no idea what to say to that, Ginny let the bodice fall to the bed, hyper-aware of Draco still behind her, his bare chest a hair's breadth away from brushing against her back. Such a large part of her wanted to lean back against him, to let him draw her to his warmth. She would bring his hands up around her, would be able to feel them cupped around her bare breasts . . .

"Planning on covering up any time soon?" his taunting voice whispered into her ear.

Startled, Ginny pulled the sweater over her head hurriedly, then shimmied out of the skirt once it was in place. She was intensely aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing any underwear. When she turned back around, she found Draco snug under the covers, his arms folded behind his head, lazily watching her from beneath eyelids that were barely half open. The lazy serpent, she thought, just waiting for its prey. He pulled back the covers invitingly, and with a sigh, she crawled beneath them. 

The rain had started coming harder and the castle got frightfully cold when it rained. Her body managed to be even stiffer than it had been when he'd first tossed her onto the bed. Turning over, she displayed her back to him again, hoping that she might be able to forget he was there long enough to fall asleep if she didn't have to look at him.

As though he could sense her thoughts and sought to unnerve her, Draco turned onto his side and all but coiled around her, his arms snugly fitting her torso to his, his legs scissoring with hers, the silk of his pajama pants sliding against her calves. His face, he buried in the crook of her neck and it seemed to Ginny that he fell almost instantly asleep, if his deep, peaceful breathing was any indication. She felt totally absorbed in him and it was just as she'd imagined it would be -- equal parts frustration and comfort, want and pain. 

Just for tonight she planned to enjoy his embrace. She would pretend he loved her desperately and was holding her so tightly because he couldn't bear the thought of ever letting her go. His heart beating against her back was soothing, and she soon found herself drifting off.

__

Snug and safe inside the serpent's embrace, she thought crazily just before sleep claimed her. 

~


	13. Chapter 7: Not Quite Everyone Says I Lov...

AN: Once again, thanks everyone for the kind words, they really mean a lot. Little One, you asked about the meaning of a word -- try http://www.dictionary.com, it should help you in the future. (Clavicles, however, is the plural for clavicle, which is a fancy way of saying collarbone.)

Hope everyone continues to enjoy, I think we're a little over halfway there now!

~

Chapter 7: Not Quite Everyone Says I Love You

~

"Ginny! Ginny, wait up, you forgot your bag!"

Slowing her hurried pace somewhat, Ginny glanced back at Kyle McGraw and forced a smile onto her face. "Thanks, Kyle," she murmured, slinging the bag over her shoulder. 

"Are you doing anything after class?" Kyle asked, settling in to walk beside her. "Because I've got this--"

"Actually, I am doing something after class," Ginny interrupted. "I'm fairly busy for the next week, in fact, and I'm going to have to break our study date for tomorrow." 

"Oh." Kyle looked positively crestfallen. "Look, Ginny, if this is about the other day, I'm really sorry--"

  
"Kyle, it's not--"

"I swear, I'm not going to maul you every time we're alone together," he continued, a goofy smile on his face. "If you're not interested in me like that, we can just be friends--"

  
"We are friends, Kyle," Ginny said firmly. "Really, I'm just busy this week."

"As long as you're sure that's all it is," Kyle said reluctantly.  
  
"Positive," Ginny assured him with a smile. "We'll get together as soon as I've got some free time. Maybe my brother and his friends will let us tag along to Hogsmeade one night."

"That sounds great," Kyle said happily.

Sensing the opportunity to make a clean break, Ginny gave him a big, fake smile, an enthusiastic wave, and began hurrying away from him.

That had gone much easier than she though it would. Of course, she hadn't exactly been thinking a whole lot about Kyle today. From the moment Ginny had opened her eyes, her thoughts had been consumed with how she could possibly avoid Ron and Harry for the rest of the day. (In all honesty, she was wondering how she might be able to avoid Ron for_ever_, as she didn't think there would ever come a time he'd be willing to discuss Draco Malfoy rationally.)

Before she'd become fully awake, the morning had actually been quite lovely. 

Her body had been warm and snug and she'd felt safe in a way she never had before. A sharp jolt of panic had shot through her when she'd felt someone (some_thing?_) nuzzling the back of her neck. Her eyes had flown open and the only thing in her vision was the deep green curtain. It was then that she remembered everything: Draco, the previous night, how he was holding her, and the fact that she wasn't wearing any underwear.

They both seemed to realize the position they were in at the same time, because she started to pull away from him at the same time he loosened his hold on her body. Rolling to face him, she'd propped her head on her hand and tried not to look too self-conscious wearing nothing but one of his rudely monogrammed shirts.

"Do you suppose it's safe to leave?" she'd whispered.

Crawling over her, he'd parted the curtains slightly (she wasn't sure why he didn't just part the curtains on his own side of the bed, now that she thought about it) and peeked outside.

  
"All clear," he murmured, opening them fully. 

"I can't leave in _this_," she'd muttered, indicating her state of undress.

He'd grinned then, and opened his mouth to make some sort of lewd remark. Not possessing the sanity to deal with it at the moment, Ginny had covered his mouth with her hand. 

"Find me something that isn't whore-ish to wear," she'd instructed firmly. 

Darting out his tongue, he'd licked her palm, which caused her to snatch her hand back like it had been burnt. He raised an eyebrow at her, then disappeared from behind the curtains. Ginny had tried to get her breathing under control and had mostly succeeded when he returned a few minutes later, already dressed himself, with one of his robes in hand.

"You should be able to make it back to Gryffindor Tower in this," he'd said, tossing her the robe.

Pulling the robe on quickly, she'd all but ran out of Slytherin Dungeon and all the way back up to the Gryffindor common room, picking up an extra burst of speed when she realized the robe and the shirt beneath it smelled like Draco. _She_ smelled like Draco after spending a night in his bed with his body wrapped around hers. 

__

I'm a slut, she'd thought as she quickly dressed in her own clothes and robes, tucking Draco's beneath her bed. _I'm a slut and I didn't even get a good shag out of it_.

After a day spent ducking into shadows whenever she saw Ron or Harry and skipping lunch for fear of running into either of them, Ginny was on her way back down to Slytherin dungeon, as ordered. Draco had tucked a note into her borrowed robe (why he couldn't simply speak to her like a normal person, instead of always communicating through little hidden notes, she'd never understand) that read:

__

Same time, same place. Bring Herbology materials. 

  
D.M.

With such flowery words, how could she resist? 

~

"Look, I'm never going to care enough to get this right, so maybe we should just shove the whole useless thing."

"I'm sorry, is this Draco Malfoy suggesting that he should _quit_ something simply because it's hard?" 

"It's not hard," Draco insisted, "it's _stupid and useless_. There's a difference."

"Of course," Ginny murmured, rolling her eyes, "how silly of me."

"When am I possibly going to need to know how to grow a Whomping Willow? I've got servants who'll plant and care for one if I ever need it."

"What if you were suddenly poor and couldn't afford servants and needed a Whomping Willow to guard what you held most dear?" Ginny pointed out sensibly. 

"That," Draco said firmy, "will never happen." 

"You'll never be poor?" 

"I'll never have some tree guarding what I hold most dear," he muttered, a muscle in his jaw ticking as thunder crashed outside the dormitory window. 

There was a lot of tension hovering around Draco, and Ginny decided to pause the study session for a little while, hoping that he would be able to attain some of that inner poise he was so famous for. 

Everyone in the school was out on the grounds watching the "show." Lightning and thunder had been fairly consistent for the past hour. Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape had conjured up a clear, protective barrier that allowed the students to sit outside comfortably without getting wet and sick. Draco and Ginny, she suspected, were the only students who had stayed inside. (Unless Hermione had managed to convince Harry and Ron to stay in, but they had been pretty keen on not only going, but in dragging her along with them.) 

Though the Slytherin common room was empty, Draco had still insisted on once again concealing them behind the curtains of his four poster bed. "It's your virtue I'm protecting," he'd said pompously when she'd questioned him about it. "Someone could get sick of staring up at the bloody sky and walk in on us in a compromising position."

"What?" she'd asked, "Me tutoring you? Or are you planning something torrid, Mr. Malfoy?" 

She'd been trying to tease him, but all his attention had been focused on the window and it seemed he barely heard her, let alone took the time to decipher her tone. At any rate, he hadn't answered and she hadn't pressed things, instead climbing up onto his bed and allowing him to draw the curtains around them. The candelabra was glowing brightly as Ginny read aloud. Draco kept one hand against the edges of the curtains so that every time a clap of thunder sounded he could peek through them.

"If you'd rather be out there with the rest of them," Ginny said after it became clear to her he was too focused on the storm to listen to her, "I certainly don't mind packing it in early."

"I don't care what you mind," Draco snapped, letting the curtain fall closed. "Eager to get out of here, Weasley? Young Kyle waiting for you?"

Heaving an impatient sigh, Ginny tossed _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_ aside and folded her arms across her chest.

  
"For your information," she informed him primly, "I ran into 'young Kyle' in the halls today and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be available to him in any way for the next week." Ginny didn't think it was terribly important to mention that she'd also made it clear to Kyle that all they would ever be was good friends. 

"And after that?" Draco asked, his upper lip curling the slightest bit.

"What business is it of yours?" Ginny wondered, jutting her chin out at him. "You said that your concern would run out when our bargain did--"

"So I did," Draco snapped. "And so long as our bargain hasn't run out, I've got a new order for you -- you'll be spending the night again."

Ginny's mouth dropped open. "But--"

"Oh, save it," Draco muttered. "I'm not asking you to do anything lewd."

"Then why am I staying?" Ginny burst out. 

"Because I said so," Draco ground out in a tone that was not to be argued with. 

"Fine," Ginny said tersely. "In that case, I'm tired and I'd like to go to sleep now."

"Fine," Draco agreed, his tone as insolent as hers had been. "Sleep sounds lovely." 

They glared at one another for a moment, then Draco began to strip out of his clothes. Turning her back to him, Ginny did the same. It wasn't until she'd gotten down to her underwear that she realized she didn't have anything to change into.

"Here," his voice said near her ear. His arm had snaked around her body, and clutched in his fist was another of his sweaters ('_Silly Git_' in white thread over dark brown cashmere). Ginny took it without a word and quickly slipped into it. When she turned around again, Draco was once again wearing a pair of pajama bottoms without a top. She wondered if he bought them separately like that, or if he simply discarded the tops because he had no use for them. 

Draco always seemed to carelessly discard the things he had no use for. 

Both of them climbed beneath the covers and Ginny tried not to think about how nice it felt, how it could easily grow to feel natural, climbing into bed with Draco Malfoy. He muttered something under his breath and the candelabra dimmed until she could just barely make out his features. Her gaze tracked lower and she was once again drawn to the vicious scar that ran the course of his lower torso. 

A particularly loud crack of thunder sounded and, in the darkness, Ginny finally saw what she'd been missing: every time there was thunder, Draco's entire body tensed, coiled tight, until a few seconds had passed. 

"You're afraid of the storm," she said in an awed voice before she could stop herself.

Snapping his head around, Draco's eyes looked scared and desperate, like an animal that knew it was about to be killed and in the worst possible way. His breathing grew more labored and Ginny bit her lower lip, wishing she could call back the words she'd just spoken.

"Yes," he bit out, "I'm afraid of the storm."

"My brother Charlie's afraid of thunderstorms," Ginny said quietly. "He was born during one. Mum and Dad were in the middle of nowhere, stranded without their wands. They had Floo powder, but no way to make a fire. Dad had to deliver Charlie himself; Charlie nearly died." She focused her gaze on his scar, rather than staring back into the intense eyes that were completely trained on her. "When he was a baby and there was a thunderstorm, he'd cry and cry and no matter what Mum did, he wouldn't stop. He's better now, of course. He does what you do, sits so still that you'd hardly think anything's the matter with him, if only he'd blinked even once in the past hour." 

"I was born on one of the sunniest days in London's history," Draco said quietly after a moment. "My mum said . . . she said I was the only light in her life and that all the sunshine that day proved it. She said I was born to live in the sunshine." 

"That's nice," Ginny said lamely, at a loss for why such a memory would evoke the sadness she heard in Draco's voice.

"My father forbade me from going out in the sun," he continued. "Said he was afraid my skin would burn, because it was so fair." 

"Well that's stupid, isn't it?" Ginny said, blushing when she realized how that must have sounded. "Not that I'm calling your father stupid -- it's just . . . you haven't got a skin condition, have you?" Draco shook his head. Or at least, she thought he had, given that she was still staring at his scar. "Then the reason your skin's so fair is because your father won't let you go out into the bloody sun."

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Draco muttered. "I don't even know why I brought it up."

"Perhaps it's just one of those things you needed to say out loud," Ginny suggested. "I know there's loads of stuff I always feel better having said aloud." Draco didn't say anything to this, which prompted Ginny to roll onto her side, taking her gaze from his scar long enough to look at his face.

He looked so tired, she thought, reaching up without thought to smooth the hair away from his face. He tensed, almost as though she'd struck him, and for some reason, this gave her enough courage to continue stroking his hair gently. This was something she'd watched her mother do for Charlie a thousand times during a storm. Stroked his hair and tried to distract him.

"Does it hurt?" she murmured, glancing down at the scar.

  
Draco's gaze followed hers. "Yes," he answered simply.

Ginny began gnawing on her lower lip, trying to decide if it was wise to pursue this topic of conversation. It was likely that her best course of action was to continue stroking his hair until he fell asleep. But she'd been curious since she'd first seen the scar, doubly so once she'd thought about how easy it would be to have removed. Why hadn't he done so? She knew Harry kept his scar as a reminder, sort of a physical manifestation of his parents' love. Somehow, Ginny doubted Draco's scar was a 'We love you, son,' from the Malfoys.

"Spit it out, brat," Draco murmured. His eyes were closed and Ginny smiled a little at the affection she could have sworn she detected lingering in his voice.

"How did it happen?" she blurted out, scratching his scalp lightly with the tips of her fingernails.

"My father," he began after a moment, "walks with a cane. Horribly ostentatious bit of trash carved in the shape of a serpent. My father doesn't need a cane, of course, but he likes to pretend that he does in the interest of lulling his enemy into believing him frail." 

"Does your father have many enemies?" Ginny wondered.

"Enough," Draco said vaguely. "He also has a very paranoid view of the world; thinks everyone's out to get him and he's got to do anything and everything to protect the Malfoy family name."

"And he thinks walking around with a limp will do that," Ginny commented doubtfully.

"If it doesn't," Draco said dryly, "the fact that, at the end of the cane, rests a razor-sharp blade will certainly help." 

"Razor-sharp blade?" Ginny gulped.

"Sharp enough to give me this," Draco said, taking her hand from his head and placing her fingers against the slightly upraised skin over his abdomen. 

  
"Your _father_ did this to you?" Ginny whispered, carefully tracing the thin line.

"When I was six," Draco continued, "we kept unicorns on our property. Illegal, of course, but I hadn't known that at the time. I thought they were beautiful, even took to naming one of them I fancied my favorite, even though they all looked exactly bloody alike. My father knew it was my favorite and because of that, because he wanted to teach me a lesson about how weak loving things was, he sold that unicorn to a man who wished to kill it so that he could sell off the horn for magic and its blood for medicinal purposes.

"I cried so hard that day. My father screamed at me to stop, warned me to stop, and I tried, I really did, but it was impossible. I don't think I've ever cried that hard, before or since. I could actually feel the bones in my chest shaking, refusing to settle, and every breath I took burned. I was six years old and my heart was broken. Memory from early childhood is supposed to fade, but I can still remember exactly the way it burned, the exact pitch of my father's screams. 

"Eventually, my father decided to stop me a different way: by slashing me with that damned cane. The wound went quite deep and it was the strangest thing: it hurt so much that my tears dried up at once. I remember that so clearly, how I'd never felt such intense pain and shock all at once and I couldn't possibly cry over it. He put a charm on me to stop the bleeding, presumably so that I wouldn't die, but he left me with every bit of the pain and the assurance that the cut would scar."

"But why?" Ginny whispered, horrified, her own eyes filled with hot tears. Her heart was aching for Draco, both the boy he'd been, and the young man he'd become who was telling his story so stoically, so emotionlessly, save the tears that filled his eyes but would not fall. 

"So that I would always remember what love costs," Draco spat bitterly. "That no good would ever come of it, only pain. I've cried a handful of times since that day, and every time, the damn thing stings and tingles. I'm fairly certain Father had it made that way. And it's so goddamned ironic that every time I think about how I got the bloody thing I start crying." His voice hitched on the last word, and he covered his eyes with one of his hands, his body shaking slightly.

Without giving herself the chance to reconsider, Ginny leaned down and pressed her lips over the straight, faded line over his abdomen. Softly, gently, she pressed kiss after kiss until she'd covered every inch. It was an insane, stupid urge, she knew. It wasn't as though she had the power to heal this wound he'd carried for more than a decade, not this easily, not just because she loved him so much she was beginning to ache with it. 

But maybe, just maybe, it would _help_. Even the tiniest bit. 

  
Having thoroughly seen to his scar, she rested her cheek against his stomach, the tears she'd held in her eyes seeping out over his skin. They were still for a moment and then she felt his hands at her shoulders urging her up. Before she could ask him if he was all right, or apologize for her behavior, or catch her breath, he'd hauled her against him and pressed his lips to hers desperately.

First her upper, then her lower lip was pulled into his mouth and he suckled at them hungrily. His hands tunneled beneath the back of her borrowed sweater as though he'd die if he couldn't touch her. And she found herself kissing him back just as desperately, her own hands seeking his bare skin, sifting through his hair, learning how kissing him this way made him groan, and how kissing him that way made him nibble at her tongue, and stroking his ear with the tip of her thumb made him sigh just so.

After God only knew how long, their snog-session began to gentle until the kisses they shared weren't much more than lips brushing back and forth. Ginny moved to her back and, seized by some force she didn't recognize (but later, would highly suspect was her heart knocking out the logic center of her brain and taking over fully), pulled Draco down against her, resting his head to her breast. Her hand resumed its position in his hair and she began gently stroking and sifting as his breathing deepened.

"You're right, brat," he mumbled, his voice hazy.

"Was I?" she murmured, feeling awfully sleep herself.

"It does help to say it out loud, doesn't it?" 

"Only when you're saying it to the right person," she answered, barely aware of what she was saying.

"And are you the right person for me?" he got out blearily, his arm heavy and comforting across her hips.

"Don't know," she mumbled as she fell asleep, "but I'm probably the only one foolish enough to stick around long enough to find out."

~


	14. Chapter 7: Not Quite Everyone Says I Lov...

Thanks again for all the encouragement, guys! I'm glad you're all enjoying so much. As ever, all the thanks in the world to Sarea for beta and moral support. 

~

"Stop avoiding the question, you stupid bastard! What the _hell_ are you doing with my sister?!"

That, Ginny decided, was definitely not the best way to start out dinner.

Her classes had been difficult today and Ginny had spent the last few hours in the library trying to gather together the proper research materials for a paper she had due in Muggle Studies on something called 'television.' Because she'd awoken again wrapped around Draco Malfoy, Ginny hadn't really been able to concentrate on anything as well as she'd have liked to. Coupled with how difficult it was to avoid Ron and Harry (who seemed to be _everywhere_ in this damn school) and Ginny was close to having a breakdown of some kind.

Oh, but the past night had been lovely. They'd woken up once before morning and, still moved by the trust Draco had placed in her, Ginny decided to tell him a few of her secrets.

And so she told him about her father having been fired by the Ministry and how she knew it would be up to her to do something to help the family, even though she was the youngest. Bill and Charlie were out living their dreams, and dreams were nice, but they didn't exactly put food on the table. Fred and George would be lucky if they didn't end up getting themselves tossed into Azkaban for one scheme or another and Ron . . . well. 

That was why, she'd told him, the Order was so important -- being accepted amongst their ranks was like being born into money. It gave her all the privilege the Malfoy name gave him and it might very well mean the difference between life and death for her family. 

Draco was quiet, listening to her speak, and then finally, all he said was, "I'm glad I can help you." 

  
Which was certainly all well and good, but Ginny had been going absolutely mad trying to figure out what it _meant_. 

Dinner had been the only silver lining on the dreary, confusing cloud that was her life. Sitting down and devouring the always-scrumptious food the House Elves had prepared had kept her going through Snape's sneering in Double Potions and Professor Bins' endless droning lecture. If she couldn't have Draco Malfoy loving her back, then by God, she would have half a dozen cream puffs. 

This beautiful plan was to be thwarted, however, by the three people she'd been avoiding all day: Ron, Harry, and Draco.

It wasn't that she was really _avoiding_ Draco; it's just that she had no idea what to say to him and was terrified of what he might have to say to her. She'd felt close to him last night, closer than she'd ever felt to anyone before. He'd let her in, let her see a part of himself he kept under tight lock and key normally and she was honored and humbled by the trust he'd placed in her.

At least, that was her first instinct. Having been left alone with her own neurotic thoughts all day, she had to wonder if she was reading more into things than there were. Draco might very well see her as nothing more than a convenient listener, someone who, as his 'slave,' would be a safe person to confide in. Obviously, she wasn't going to go blabbing his secrets and risk him blabbing hers. And as for the snogging -- he _was_ a seventeen-year-old boy. 

"I'd say that's between me and your _sister_, Weasley," Draco said in a low, dangerous voice. Ginny winced a little to hear it. She also winced at the way Ron had Draco pinned to the wall by his neck.

"Ron," Harry was saying calmly, "it's possible you should take a few deep breaths."

"Sod deep breaths," Hermione snapped, "Ron, let go of him before you choke him to death!"

"My sister hasn't been back to the common room two nights in a row now," Ron was saying through gritted teeth, "and the last person she was seen with is this miserable git right here. Now he's going to tell me what he's done to her so that we can _help_ her, or I'm going to kill him."

"I haven't done a bloody thing to her," Draco muttered, trying to reach his wand. Ron's hold prevented it and Ginny was momentarily impressed by her brother's strength. Of course he seemed to be predominantly motivated by insanity and rage, so that might have had something to do with it.

"Ron, stop it!" Ginny cried, cutting through the crowd that had gathered to watch Ron Weasley pummel Draco Malfoy.

"Gin!" Ron cried happily. "There you are. What did he do to you, Gin? Is it some sort of spell that makes you forget to put on all your clothes before you leave the castle?"

"Oh for God's sake," Ginny muttered, walking up to the two boys. She rather effortlessly pried Ron's fingers from around Draco's neck and shoved them apart. Draco was taking grateful lungfuls of air, and Ron seemed ready to run at him again for breathing too loudly. "What started this?"

  
"Nothing!" Draco choked. "Your idiot brother attacked me with absolutely no provocation--"

"You've done something to my sister!" Ron screeched.

"I assure you, Weasley, anything I've done to your sister has only been because she wanted me to," Draco said nastily.

"Oh, just stop provoking him," Ginny muttered tiredly at Draco.

"But it's so easy," Draco said with a grin.

"If you've touched her, I'll kill you," Ron threatened.

"I'd like to see you try," Draco said dangerously, "when you haven't taken me by surprise, you cowardly pillock."

"Get out of the way, Gin," Ron said angrily.

"No," Ginny said firmly.

Ron looked confused. "No?"

"No," Ginny agreed. "I'm not getting out of the way so that you two can try to kill each other. I--" She stopped herself, because she'd been about to say 'I love you both too much for that' before thinking better of such an admission. 

"Get out of the way, Gin," Draco said firmly. "That's an order," he added, only loud enough for her to hear.

"No," Ginny said stubbornly, spinning around to pin Draco with a glare. 

"Fine," Draco snapped, "the hard way, then." He pulled out his wand, murmured '_Wingardium Leviosa' _and Ginny found herself propelled out of the way and left to hover over the scene. 

"Now, Weasley," Draco continued, indicating his wand, "let's try and kill each other like civilized people."

"Oh, enough," Hermione declared, whipping out her own wand. Looking resigned, Harry did the same beside her. "You take your idiot best friend," she instructed, and by her tone, you'd never believe Ron was also Hermione's best friend. 

"Oh, fine," Harry muttered to himself, "when he earns the last two hundred points for Gryffindor that wins us the House Cup, he's _your_ best friend; when he's acting stupid, he's _my_ best friend. I don't want to do it this time, he stays mad at me for weeks."

"You two will stay in neutral corners until Professor McGonagall arrives to straighten you out," Hermione said clearly, "or we will be forced to hex you."

"You can't hex us," Ron said, laughing in her face. "It's against school rules."

Hermione hexed him. "_Hogwarts: A History_, page two thirty-nine, paragraph eight: 'The Head Girl and Boy are excused from all traditional school law provided they are putting the good of the school and its students ahead of all else.'"

"I've really got to read that book one day," Ron mumbled, trying and failing to move his frozen arms.

  
"Don't have to do anything to you, do I?" Harry asked Draco. 

"I'm good," Draco assured him, putting his wand away. "Decent of you, Potter, not to hex me anyway."

"I'm not Head Boy, am I?" Harry said with a grin.

"Oh, Ron," Ginny sighed, staring at her brother from where she was still hovering above him. "You just don't know when to quit."

"He's done something to you, Gin," Ron insisted.

"No, Ron," Ginny said tiredly, "he hasn't." 

  
Something in her voice must have penetrated Ron's brain, because he got a shocked look on his face a second before it closed over entirely and he might as well have been made of stone. It hurt Ginny to see it, but she supposed it was better than Ron railing around the castle, challenging Draco to duels for things he hadn't even done.

Professor McGonagall arrived a few moments later and let out a cry of outrage at the sight before her. She got Ginny down from the ceiling and unfroze Ron, ordering him and Draco to Professor Dumbledore's office for a lecture and detention. 

Ginny took this opportunity to flee.

~

It seemed, however, that Ginny's flight from insanity was not as successful as she would have liked, because she hadn't gotten fifty feet away before she heard Draco calling her name. 

"What?" she asked wearily, turning toward him.

"You were gone when I woke up this morning," he said, and she could have sworn he sounded hurt.

"I had an early class," Ginny lied. Truthfully, she couldn't bear to lie with him another moment; _truthfully_, she couldn't bear loving him another moment, but she didn't have much control over that, and she _could_ just get out of the bed.

"I missed you," he said softly, then, realizing what he'd just said, looked down at the floor. "I mean . . . it's nice. Having someone there when you wake up. I've never . . . had that before."

"I haven't either," she confessed just as softly. "And it is. Nice, I mean. Having someone." _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ "You shouldn't let Ron provoke you like that," she blurted out. "He's just going to get you into trouble and you've been doing such a good job avoiding each other all year, too." 

"Yeah, well, your brother doesn't like you spending so much time with me," Draco said ruefully. Then, his expression sobered and he looked her in the eye. "And I can't say that he's entirely wrong." 

"What are you talking about?" Ginny asked, though she was starting to suspect.

"God knows how it pains me to say this," Draco said with a sigh, "but your brother has a point. I'm not exactly good for you, Ginny. I'm not even good for myself, but I can't really get away from me." 

"Ron doesn't tell me what to do," Ginny declared hotly, "and he certainly doesn't tell me who my friends are."

  
"Is that what I am?" Draco asked curiously. "Your friend?"

Ginny blushed a little. "Of course you are," she muttered. "What else?"

"'Task Master'?" Draco wondered with a little smile. "'Evil Bastard'? 'Silly Git'?"

Again, Ginny blushed as he brought to mind the sweaters she'd monogrammed. "I was angry--"

"You had a right to be," Draco interrupted. "It _was_ a lousy thing to do, but I couldn't help myself. You so clearly didn't want to have anything to do with me." They both smiled a little at that. "And I'm beginning to think you had the right idea back then. Being friends," he said it slowly, as though he didn't quite believe 'friends' was the right word, "with me is going to cause you problems, with your family, with your other friends--"

"And that's my decision to make," Ginny declared hotly. "I'm perfectly capable of figuring out who to spend time with all by myself, thank you very much."

"Are you?" Draco wondered softly. "Because the way I see it, I _have_ been forcing you to be around me, forcing you to do all the . . . things . . . we've done. Not with a spell, but you can't tell me you're not just as powerless to refuse."

"But you're not, not really," Ginny denied.

  
"Fine," Draco said, waving a dismissive hand, "some of the time, you must feel sorry for me, as well, but--"

  
"You're wrong," she insisted, "Draco, that's not it at all!"

"I'm a cold, miserable bastard," Draco continued, undaunted, "always have been, probably always will be. How low must your self esteem be to hang around me so much, sodding Order or no--"

"I haven't got low self esteem," Ginny all but yelled, her voice thick with emotion, "I hang around so much because I'm in love with you, you amazing git!"

There had to be some sort of echo in the hallway, because Ginny was certain her declaration was ringing in her ears, over and over again. Draco was staring at her like she'd gone mad and she wasn't entirely certain she hadn't. What could have possessed her to just _tell_ him like that? His mouth was opening and closing like an extremely confused fish and she wanted to take it back, tried to do so, but couldn't get her vocal chords to work, either. Any moment now, the horror and shock of her admission would fade and he'd tell her how stupid he thought she was. Any moment . . .

"Mr. Malfoy!" Professor McGonagall snapped from the other end of the hallway. Draco didn't look away from Ginny. "Unless you would like to spend the next _four_ hours in detention, you will get moving this instant. Ms. Weasley, I believe you have homework to attend to."

Still, Draco didn't look away from Ginny, and Ginny wasn't any closer to remembering how to speak. 

"Draco Malfoy," McGonagall said warningly, "do not make me move you."

Swallowing once, deeply, Draco turned from Ginny and walked away. 

~


	15. Chapter 8: Yes We Have No Bananas

Hi everyone and thanks again for the wonderful reviews! Things get a little . . . er . . .racy in this chapter. *g* So racy, in fact, that I've had to edit it for fanfiction.net. You can find an unedited version at the website I share with Sarea:

http://www.angelfire.com/wizard/okelani/index.html

~

Chapter 8: Yes We Have No Bananas 

~

Feeling utterly dejected, and having no reason to avoid it now that things had come to a head with Ron, Ginny retired to the Gryffindor common room, determined to have a good sulk. 

Her plan was ruined once she reached the common room and found Hermione waiting for her.

"I'm not going to judge," Hermione said firmly, "even though it _is_ Draco Malfoy. I just want to make sure you don't make a huge mistake."

"You don't have to worry," Ginny said with a sigh, "because I couldn't possibly make a bigger mistake than I just have." She plopped down on the couch next to Hermione.

"Oh God," Hermione said worriedly, "what have you done?" Ginny heard the 'now' on the end of that sentence, but Hermione was too sweet to vocalize it.

"I told him I loved him," Ginny said, then burst into tears.

  
"Oh, Gin," Hermione said soothingly, awkwardly patting the other girl on the back. Ginny had noticed that Hermione wasn't entirely comfortable with physical displays of affection, the way she was with Harry notwithstanding. In the beginning, it had rather been like watching two porcupines trying to mate without sticking each other. They'd gotten past it, of course, and were now almost sickeningly demonstrative with one another, but it was moments like this one, Hermione awkwardly patting Ginny's back, that she remembered how uncomfortable with normal human interaction her friend had once been.

"Did he say something hateful?" Hermione asked sympathetically.

"No," Ginny sniffled. "He didn't have a chance to say anything at all. He just stared at me in total shock for a few moments, then Professor McGonagall made him go to detention."

Hermione looked confused. "He didn't say anything?"

"He must think I'm so stupid," Ginny wailed. "_You_ must think I'm so stupid! I know _Ron_ thinks I'm stupid!" 

"No one thinks you're stupid," Hermione said firmly. "We're all just worried about you, that's all." 

"Well you haven't got anything to be worried about now," Ginny said firmly, "because after what I've said, Draco Malfoy probably isn't going to come within ten feet of me, bargain or no bargain."

"Yes, I've been meaning to ask you about that," Hermione said, "what bargain were you going on about?"

Ginny narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What do you mean, you've been meaning to ask?"

Blushing a little, Hermione shrugged. "Well, you and Malfoy weren't really trying to be quiet and I sort of overheard the beginning of your conversation. Though Harry pulled me away before your little declaration, reminding me that it wasn't very becoming to eavesdrop on private conversations." Hermione grumbled to herself a little. "You'd think he and Malfoy hadn't been arch nemeses for the past seven years, the amount of slack Harry's willing to cut him."

"I can't talk about it," Ginny said at last. "I'm not allowed to."

"Malfoy won't allow you to--"

"Not Draco," Ginny corrected. "Everything is not about Draco Malfoy. _I_ can't talk about it for reasons _I_ can't disclose."

Lips pursed together, Hermione nodded resignedly. "All right then. If you're sure?"

"Positive."

"Then I suppose we've only one last thing to discuss."

"We have?" Ginny asked, confused.

"It is my suspicion that Draco Malfoy is not as indifferent to you as you seem to think he is," Hermione stated, "and given how ridiculously in love with him you are, I thought that a stone of caution was in order."

"Caution," Ginny said slowly.

"A Muggle invention," Hermione said with a grin, "that the Wizarding community has neither accepted, nor found a substitute for, whether for lack of trying or some sort of enforced chastity until marriage, is unclear." Hermione pulled a small box out of her bag.

"What is that?" Ginny whispered.

"They're called condoms," Hermione said, placing the box on Ginny's lap, "and they're to ensure that, should things get out of hand with Malfoy, it won't ruin your entire life." 

"What . . . what do they _do_?" Ginny wondered. "Do you swallow them?"

"No," Hermione said gently. "They're . . . well, they're for him. You . . . that is . . ." Now, Hermione was blushing furiously. "There are instructions inside," she mumbled, opening the box and handing Ginny a small, folded piece of paper.

Ginny began reading quickly, the red on her cheeks deepening until it far surpassed the red of her hair. Hermione tried to look everywhere but at Ginny. 

"Hermione," Ginny hissed, scandalized, "Isn't this . . . I mean, don't you think this is a bit premature?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Do you think it's premature?"

"I don't know!" Ginny burst out. "I don't even know how he feels--"

"I'm not giving you these because of how he feels," Hermione said firmly. "It's how you feel that worries me. Besides, caution is never premature."

"Hermione, I just can't," Ginny said, her cheeks reddening further. "I can't and . . . Draco wouldn't . . . would he?"

"Harry does," Hermione assured her quietly.

"But Harry . . . I mean, he was raised around Muggles, wasn't he? So this wasn't a totally foreign concept to him . . ."

"Once you explain to Draco that this practically guarantees you won't get pregnant, he'll use it," Hermione said firmly.

"How do I . . . I mean, do I just toss it at him and tell him to put it on before he comes to bed?" Ginny asked, feeling that the entire conversation had taken a surreal twist. 

"You can," Hermione said slowly, "or you can make putting it on part of the . . . fun," she said at last, after searching for the right word.

"Part of the fun," Ginny repeated slowly, contemplating the box in her hand.

"You should practice," Hermione said, "in case he's totally useless at it."

Ginny's eyes bugged. "Practice?!"

Hermione looked confused for a moment, then shook her head, making an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. "Not _that_ -- putting the condom on!"

"Oh!" Ginny said loudly, her voice relieved. "Oh," she said again, a bit more daunted. "How?"

"Use this," Hermione said, pulling a banana out of her book bag. Ginny looked at her doubtfully, and Hermione shrugged. 

"Just don't ever tell Ron who gave them to you."

~

This time it wasn't an incantation that closed the curtains around his bed, but a hand that shook slightly from how nervous its owner was. Sneaking into the Slytherin dungeon was easier than she'd thought it would be. Once you knew the password, it wasn't that difficult to get through the common room without being seen. There were so many dark shadows that the dungeon was almost built for subterfuge. 

And no one in Slytherin house ever went to bed early; no one, save for Draco Malfoy.

Draco was still serving detention for Professor McGonagall and Ginny was wondering what on earth had possessed her to do such a reckless thing. She could still leave and he'd never know she'd been here, never know she'd come to him with condoms in her book bag and not much of anything under her robe.

Somehow, during her conversation with Hermione, during the hour she'd spent practicing on the banana, Ginny had come to a realization: she wanted Draco. It wasn't exactly news, but the certainty that had seized her was. There were only a few short weeks left for the school term this year, and when it ended, Draco would move on and she'd probably never see him again. The idea of it was inconceivable and forced Ginny to accept a truth that frightened her: she wanted him and she didn't care whether he loved her back or not. She just wanted to hold him; she wanted to belong to him, even if it was only for a moment. Otherwise, she would always look back on this time, the first time she was ever in love, with nothing but regret; and the emotion she felt, the desperate honesty of her love deserved better. 

However, this meant she had to wait exactly where she was, with all the time in the world for second thoughts and doubts to creep into her mind. Would he even want her? Stupid question, given that he was a teenage boy and she was a willing girl. But did he want _her_ as more than just a willing, warm body? Ginny thought that maybe he liked her a little bit. He was definitely attracted to her, but Ginny got the impression that he didn't want to be. He would kiss her breathless, then later be distant, or even angry. 

Certainly, he was a moody bastard. Ginny felt her lips curve slightly. A few weeks ago, that thought would have been acerbic, filled with all the malice her family had harbored toward the Malfoys for years. Now, it was almost fond. She knew Draco now, knew him beyond the snotty voice in the halls or the indefinable menace Ron had ranted on about for years. He was spoiled and arrogant and could be quite cold; he was also funny, loyal, intense about things that mattered to him, and fiercely tender. And he was so very, very gentle with her. 

On the heel of that thought came the sound of footfalls beyond the curtain. Ginny caught her breath, hoping this was not one of the other Slytherin boys coming to bed; hoping that it was, because she did not believe herself ready to face Draco. Footsteps approached the bed slowly, then seemed to stop and she knew he had to realize she was waiting for him. An endless moment passed, then the curtains parted and a sliver of his face was revealed to her, shadowed by the dim lighting in the room.

After a moment of indecision, Draco climbed onto the bed, letting the curtain fall back into place behind him. His gaze tangled with hers, both of them sitting back on their heels, a few inches separating them. Ginny waited for him to say something, but he just kept staring at her like he wasn't sure whether to believe she was real. Finally, the suspense about to choke her, Ginny opened her mouth.

  
"Draco--"

He pressed his fingers to her lips and shook his head slightly. His hand moved until he cupped her jaw in his palm, the pad of his thumb stroking over her bottom lip with avid gentleness. After a moment, he brought his other hand up to frame her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing and memorizing the contours of her lips. 

"You're not my slave anymore," he said calmly, his voice low and rough as though the act of speaking was incredibly difficult.

  
She understood exactly what he was saying, and it was as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. He realized why she was here, understood what she was too terrified to tell him. And he was giving her the decision, making sure she realized that this wasn't something expected of her to appease the Order's rules. This would only be about them, about what they each wanted. 

"Draco," she murmured again, and he shook his head, bringing her a little closer to him.

"Kiss me, brat," he said quietly, and it sounded like an order, but his stormy gray eyes were pleading. 

Wanting to do nothing else, Ginny leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, her arms wrapping around his neck, and his mouth on hers was all Wizard chess and chocolate frogs and rainstorms and Double Potions being cancelled. His tongue pressed against her lips and she opened for him, her fingers sliding through the fine silk of his hair in a vain effort to memorize the feel of him. 

They fell into one another again and again, long, drugging kiss after long, drugging kiss. Ginny's hands moved to the tie on her robe, loosening it before turning her attention to the robe Draco wore. She broke their kiss long enough to rip the thing over his head, then went to work on unknotting his tie. 

"Wait," he mumbled, stilling her hands with his own. He brought each of them to his mouth and pressed rough, desperate kisses to her knuckles.

"Why?" she asked, breathless.

"I can't make you any promises," he said in a voice that spoke volumes of the pain such an admission caused him.

"I don't want promises," she whispered, pulling one of her hands from his in order to stroke the side of his face.

"You deserve them," he insisted roughly. "I'm not exactly the noble sort, and I'd appreciate you not totally dismissing the few meager stabs I make at it."

"If I wanted a noble boy, I wouldn't have gone looking for him in Slytherin House, would I?" she pointed out wryly, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Because she could, she darted her tongue out and tasted the skin there.

Draco took both her wrists firmly in his hands again and pushed her away from him enough to look into her eyes. "You didn't go looking, full stop," he pointed out harshly. "You shouldn't--"

"Love you?" she wondered in a small voice. Tears sprang to her eyes and she didn't fight the hold he had on her wrists. She could only imagine how vulnerable she looked to him; she knew how small she felt next to him. Yet she was not afraid. The grip he held her in was firm, but in no way painful. Draco Malfoy, arguably Hogwarts' preeminent 'bad boy,' was the only person who had ever made Ginny's breath come faster, her heart feel still and riotous at the same time, and her mind rest at last in the moment, content to experience all of him that she could.

Her words seemed to settle around him like a childhood blanket and he watched her eyes carefully, measuring, she was sure, just how much she meant them. People said things to Draco all the time without meaning them, without any sort of genuine emotion to back them up. His father's love was the maiming kind, scraping away at what was left of Draco's humanity, leaving him bleeding and scarred, bitterness and cruelty his only weapons against what life had to offer him. Draco's friends were false and, to Ginny's knowledge, he had never had a serious girlfriend. Was there anyone that had ever loved him, not because they had to, but just because he was Draco?

"Is that what I'm not supposed to do?" she continued, a tear spilling down her cheek. "Because if it is, I've failed miserably." She choked back a sob, and his grip on her wrists loosened until the pad of this thumb was gently stroking her pulse point in little circles that matched its accelerated beating.

  
"So have I," he muttered, then he kissed her, or perhaps she kissed him, or maybe they met in the middle, she couldn't be sure, even days later as she recounted the entire incident in her diary, couldn't quite remember who moved first. It didn't really matter, though; in the end, the only thing that mattered was the kiss itself and how it went on and on; how it gentled and roughened, became light, then hard, the way it nibbled and inched its way into her soul until she felt a part of herself come loose, lost to him forever.

~

TBC

Once again, an unedited version of this chapter can be found here:

http://www.angelfire.com/wizard/okelani/index.html  
Under Jade's fanfic.


	16. Chapter 9: Rivers Frozen

AN: Thanks for all the lovely comments; I'm glad the smut was so well received. *g* Things get a little angsty here, but I promise, everything _will_ turn out all right in the end. Swear. Cross my heart, hope to die. 

Again, an unedited version of this chapter appears:

http://www.angelfire.com/wizard/okelani/index.html under Jade's fanfic. While you're there, check out Sarea's fic, because it's awesome. Also -- due to how well received the last chapter was, angelfire had some bandwidth issues. *g* If the page is temporarily down, I've set up a mirror of both smutty chapters in one big file here:

http://www.angelfire.com/clone/okelani/ow8and9mirror.htm

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it! And to everyone who doesn't . . . have a great Thursday! ;-)

~

Chapter 9: Rivers Frozen

"This is our winter and we are rivers frozen;

Too much wisdom has consumed the flame;

When I was innocent;  
There was magic in your name" – Fred Johnston

~

__

The sky was murky, rather like water got when there was something wrong with the ecosystem. It wasn't gray, like it sometimes got before a storm, or the bright blue of summer; it was the murky green-blue-gray mass that whispered of magic duels and dark, dark goings on.

And then the sky shifted, the murkiness giving way to the scarlet of fire as though a thousand dragons had thrown back their heads and howled into the night at once. It burned and burned until a great cloud came seemingly from nowhere and put out the sky's fire. 

Then, the sky was dark, not ominous, but the sort of quiet dark that always came just before the pre-dawn hours; just before the day was born again.

"Is this it, then?" she asked him. They were naked again, her chin propped up against his chest so she could look him in the eye. The scar on his abdomen had faded; it barely looked like she'd ever dribbled purple pear juice on him now. 

"What else is there?" he wondered, and they were staring out at a field of ash, the embers of the fire that had burned the earth clean still glowing. 

"My parents are never going to understand any of this," she declared at last.

"Fuck 'em," he announced, and before she could chastise him, he brought her mouth to his and kissed her breathless. He kissed her until the sun came up and the ash and flame cooled to nothing and when she opened her eyes he was gone and she was dressed in black, standing in front of a gravestone. It said 'Malfoy' and she was crying and this all seemed terribly important, but it was slipping away already and she was having trouble remembering him, but she remembered his eyes, knew that they were gray, gray and stormy and the last things she wanted to see before she died.

~

For a moment, Ginny couldn't remember where she was. Blinking her eyes open sleepily, she saw green velvet all around her, felt the heavy weight of an arm draped over her hips, and thought, _Draco_. A vague sense of unease overtook her, some unsettling remnant floating about her subconscious, but after a moment, that too, passed, and she was left only with a battle to wakefulness.

As she fought the pull of sleep, she recalled the storm, and Draco's insistence that she stay with him; wondered if it had rained again this past night. Just as she was noticing that her body felt heavier and lighter, sore and invigorated, tingling and still, all at once, Draco stirred behind her, pressed an absentminded kiss to her nape and Ginny suddenly remembered everything.

__

Kissmeloveyourainstormsamicryingshhbratloveyouloveyouloveyou

Suddenly, it was all too much -- the way his arm felt, the way she remembered how _he'd_ felt --_ OhGodohGodohGod _-- what had she been _thinking_ last night? Had she gone mad? Surely there was some kind of condition. Perhaps she needed to spend some time at St. Mungo's because something was definitely wrong with her, given that she'd laid her heart and her body open wide for Draco Malfoy and--

--had he told her, in the vaguest way possible, of course, that he loved her?

"You awake, brat?" he whispered against her ear, his breath puffing against her skin in the most delicious way. 

Meaning to say 'Good morning' or something of the like, she was shocked when the only phrase that left her mouth was a rather desperate, "Do you love me?"

His body tensed a little. "What?" he asked, in a very deliberate tone.

Closing her eyes, Ginny rolled over until she was facing him. Not opening her eyes, she asked again, "Do you love me?"

He was still so tense, and it took her a moment to realize that tenseness was due to the fact that he was trying not to laugh in her face. Opening her eyes wide, she smacked him, hard, in the center of his chest.

"It's not funny!" she shouted in the loudest whisper she could manage.

"It is," he said around a snicker, "the way you said it . . . the look on your face . . ."

"Stop it!" she insisted, trying not to laugh herself. 

"Silly, stupid girl," he murmured, a second before he kissed her, stealing her irritation along with her breath. His hands on her back and in her hair were gentle, and she bit back a sob when she felt him shudder against her. 

Her eyelids fluttered shut of their own volition and the back of her throat grew tight with emotion. She hadn't really expected him to answer her, to give her the words. Some part of her believed he did love her. He certainly held her as if he did. And then there was the way he kissed her, as though he could not bear the thought of no longer touching her, as if she were air and water to him. There was such a quiet desperation about him that she was filled with real fear for the first time since her association with Draco Malfoy had begun: there were no storms in sight, so what did Draco have to fear?

A knot had formed inside her chest and it was pushing against her heart, causing it to ache with knowledge she did not yet possess. If the way Draco was holding her was any indication, he felt it, too. Last night, he had claimed himself unable to make her any promises, and she hadn't cared then, hadn't wanted anything but to be with him completely, even if it was for only a night. Now, though, knowing what it could be like between them, she'd become greedy. She didn't want to give him up, not ever, but was also unsure how to broach the subject. If this was to be the only morning they would wake up together, she wanted it to be perfect. 

"What's today?" she whispered in the dim quiet of the little cocoon they'd built around themselves. 

"Saturday," he replied, his voice equally hushed, their foreheads touching gently.

"No classes," she declared with a wide smile. 

"No classes," he agreed, and if she'd thought him afraid before, she sensed a lingering sadness clinging to him now. It was clinging to her as well, and she didn't know how to combat it. She only knew that she had to try.

"Last night was . . ." Her brain began to short circuit when she tried to find words that described what the past night had meant to her. Trivial sentiments like 'lovely' and 'wonderful' and 'fun' and 'amazing' flitted through her mind, then were easily discarded. He had become a _part_ of her last night; how on earth could a girl be expected to express that properly?

"I never . . ." He actually blushed a little, and it delighted her to learn that he could. "I never really knew it would be like that. I mean, I knew I'd be great, of course, but I never really realized that . . . _we_ could be great. Together. Never realized it was quite such a team sport."

"Me neither," she said softly.

"Really?" He started stroking the curve of her hip with the tips of his fingers. "I thought girls had these sort of first time moments all mapped out from beginning to end in some sort of perfect romance novel fantasy."

"We do," Ginny confirmed quietly, not looking at him. "It's just that . . . you don't really think the fantasy is real. You hope, but . . . it's never supposed to live up to the fantasy. It's certainly never supposed to be _better_ than . . ." She began gnawing on her lip again, wishing she didn't sound so inexperienced. She wanted to be worldly and wonderful for him, and instead, she could barely string together the words to tell him what he meant to her.

"Better, eh?" he said, looking infinitely pleased with himself.

Unable to resist, she rolled her eyes. "Yes, Draco, you're a sex God, you rocked me and . . ." The smile slowly left her face and she heaved a huge, rueful sigh. "And I'll never be the same again. Happy?" 

"Yes, actually," he answered seriously. "I think for the first time in my whole life, I actually am."

The mood around them had turned playful, and Ginny welcomed it. Raising her eyebrows at him, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose, then the curve of his jaw. 

"I bet I can make you a tiny bit happier," she whispered. 

"I bet there's no way in hell I'd bet against you," he groaned as her hand slipped beneath the covers bunched at his waist.

Later, as she lay with her cheek pressed to his stomach, a sense of awe overtook her.

"Is it always like this?" she wondered quietly.

She couldn't see his face, but she felt the smile in his words. "I'll have to pay close attention next time to see."

~

~

"Ginny, are you . . . skipping?" a fifth year girl asked her as she left the Gryffindor common room.

"If I am," Ginny called over her shoulder as the Fat Lady began closing the portrait hole behind her, "I've earned it!"

Humming under her breath, Ginny headed to the library. She had to put in some time today for a test Professor Bins was having on Monday, and after that, she was going to meet Draco by the lake.

Both of them had been unwilling to leave the warmth and safety of his bed earlier, but the thought of being discovered by a gaggle of drooling Slytherin boys spurred them on. They'd shared a dozen kisses as they dressed and it had taken all the willpower she possessed to leave him. 

The library was packed (Final N.E.W.T. examinations began on Monday) with seventh years. A table of Ravenclaws looked like they'd been there all day, half eaten sandwiches and the like scattered about their books. Ginny found an empty table in the corner, set her bag down on a chair, then went looking for the books on Professor Bins' list. 

She'd been studying for nearly half an hour when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  
"This seat taken?" Kyle McGraw asked, a tiny, hopeful smile on his face.

"It is now," Ginny replied, genuinely happy to see him. Or maybe it was just that she was genuinely happy today, in general. 

"I just wanted to make sure things were all right between us," he said as he took a seat. "I'd really hate for there to be any . . . awkwardness."

"There isn't," Ginny assured him, "so long as we both agree that we're just friends."

"True blue and no funny business whatsoever," Kyle agreed. "Besides, you've got the last empty table here." They exchanged smiles, and Kyle started setting up his own studying material. They read in silence for a few minutes until Ginny felt someone approach the table.

"Hi, hi, sorry I'm late."

Ginny looked up to find a lovely girl in front of her. "You're not late, I was early," she heard Kyle say. "Ginny, this is Lysandra Burns, Lys, this is Ginny Weasley." 

"Hi," Ginny said, smiling a little at the way Lysandra placed a possessive hand on Kyle's shoulder, while the other rifled through the book bag balanced on her hip. Ginny recognized Lysandra now; she was a Hufflepuff, also in her sixth year, taking a lot of the same classes as Kyle. The Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors only shared one class together this year -- Professor Bins'. "Come to study until your brains fall out?" 

"Hopefully nothing so drastic," Lysandra said, triumphantly removing a quill from her book bag, then taking a seat beside Kyle. "I'm just hoping to study hard enough to pass." She made a 'oh, yeah' gesture with her hands. "The reason I was late was that I couldn't bear to leave the show we had over lunch." 

"What show?" Ginny asked curiously.

"That new girl, Ezra Whatsherfuck? She and Seamus Finnigan had a huge row halfway through lunch." 

"What about?" Now, Ginny was concerned for her friend.

"Don't know," Lysandra said, pouting a little. "They were arguing in those very loud whispers where you can't understand a bloody word they're saying, only that it's no good." 

"The floor show certainly explains why you were late," Kyle noted.

"I thought I wasn't late," Lysandra mentioned with a smile. Kyle grinned back and Ginny restrained the urge to barf. It wasn't jealousy -- they were just sickening. 

"I'm surprised either of us got here," Kyle said, "what with how mad this place is."

"Did you run into a feuding couple, too?" Ginny wondered.

"Nope. Just an insane maniac," Kyle said ruefully. "I know he's a . . . friend of yours or something, Gin, but someone really should put a muzzle on Draco Malfoy. Guy's got a screw loose."

"You ran into Draco?" Ginny sat up straighter in her seat.

"More like he ran into me," Kyle corrected. "He was muttering something under his breath, looked really brassed off. Told me to watch where I was going. Asked me where you were, actually. Told him he'd probably find you here."

"How did you know where I'd be?" Ginny asked crossly.

"You're putting me on, right?" Kyle said slowly. "_Everyone_ in the whole bloody school is here, or will be before the day is done. Half of us have N.E.W.T.s and O.W.L.s, and the other half are working on what I've heard are the most stressful finals Hogwarts has ever had. Haven't you been hearing what people are saying?"

"No?" Ginny said helplessly. In truth, unless it had to do with Draco, she hadn't been listening or worrying over much lately. 

"All the teachers are worried," Lysandra confided. "There's something coming. Professor Dumbledore's had portents or something." She sighed. "I really hope whatever it is doesn't interfere with the Quidditch World Cup. Ireland really has a shot this year." 

"Not once Scotland is through with them," Kyle muttered. 

"You and your Scottish pride," Lysandra said, waving a hand at him. "I'm not even Irish -- I just root for the best team."

"Oh come off it," Kyle said, "if Manchester were in the running, you'd knock the Irish Seeker in front of a train." 

"Listen, why don't I leave you two alone," Ginny interrupted, gathering her books together. Her mind was scrambling to figure out what had happened to Draco between the time that she'd left him, to when he ran into Kyle. Perhaps he'd gotten an owl from his father. Draco never had told her what he was so bothered by, come to think of it.

"Are you sure?" Kyle said doubtfully. "We've got a lot yet to study for--"

"Positive," Ginny said, pasting a bright smile onto her face. "You two have fun." 

Hurrying out of the library, Ginny thought back to what Kyle had said about telling Draco where she was. Did he . . . did he think she was meeting Kyle behind his back? It was ridiculous, Draco wasn't that insecure, but . . . if something else was bothering him, something to do with his father, it was possible he'd blown something perfectly innocent out of proportion. Another thought occurred to her -- what if Draco had come by the library after his run-in with Kyle, then seen them together? 

He'd gotten so jealous the last time, so irrational. And that had been before they'd slept together. Picking up her pace, Ginny racked her brain, trying to figure out where Draco might have gone.

~

An hour later and Ginny was no closer to finding Draco. He wasn't in the Slytherin common room and he wasn't down by the lake. The Quidditch pitch was empty and she couldn't very well ask people milling about the halls if they'd seen him, since everyone was in the library. She had even sucked up the courage to ask Professor Snape if he'd seen Draco -- no, of course, but he had looked at her suspiciously for asking. 

The dining hall had been nearly empty, and Ginny had stopped for a few moments to eat something -- she hadn't done so since lunch the day before and she'd do Draco no good if she passed out. While she was there, a nervous Ravenclaw first year spilled blood pudding all over Ginny's robes and it had taken a considerable amount of restraint not to unload all her worry and frustration on the poor girl.

Hurrying up to Gryffindor Tower to change, Ginny spotted Hermione exiting the portrait hole that housed the Fat Lady, who seemed to be missing.

"Herm," Ginny called, "hold that painting!"

Hermione looked confused for a moment, then noticed the Fat Lady's absence. "Sorry," she muttered, "bit distracted, I'm afraid."

"Anything to do with the rumors I've been hearing about Dumbledore's portents?" Ginny wondered.

"Oh dear," Hermione said dreadfully, "there's already rumors?" 

  
"Hermione, that's the point when you're supposed to say, 'Oye, Gin, listening to rumors? Rubbish' and send me on my way," Ginny said nervously.

"It's not rubbish," Hermione said miserably. "But it's not quite as dire as you might think."

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked softly.

"Things are . . . lines are being drawn," Hermione said, seeming a loss for words, something Hermione never was. "Things are just going to tighten up, especially around school. Ginny, I can't talk now, I'm on my way to meet Harry--"

"Go," Ginny said. "Sorry." 

"You'll see," Hermione said as she hurried along. "It'll all turn out right in the end," 

"Will it?" Ginny whispered softly to herself. Hermione didn't hear her, and Ginny was glad. Wanting to be reassured about a situation you didn't know much about was incredibly childish and Ginny liked to think she had outgrown childish things.

As she was about to step through the portrait hole, she heard voices coming nearer. Turning, she saw Ezra and Draco walking toward her, arguing about something.

"I'm in love with her," Draco was saying earnestly, and Ginny's heart flipped over in her chest. She could tell herself until the end of time that she didn't need to hear him say it, that she could _feel_ it -- but nothing, _nothing_ had ever felt like hearing him say it did. She felt invincible; in that very moment, she would have told anyone who asked that she felt able to fly.

It was remarkable, too, hearing him say it like that when he didn't know she was listening. Lying to Ezra would be pointless, of course -- they were probably only engaged in conversation in the first place because Draco had no doubt been bothering Ezra about where Ginny had gotten off to. The look on Ezra's face was priceless, as well -- like she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. Ginny imagined it would take quite a bit of getting used to on everyone's part. Ezra was probably giving Draco an earful, warning him not to hurt her friend. 

"That's great, Draco," Ezra said bitterly, "I'm happy for you. But it doesn't change a damn thing."

"It changes _everything_," Draco insisted heatedly. 

"It doesn't!" Ezra stubbornly asserted. "It didn't change anything when I fell in love, and it doesn't for you. We're stuck with each other, Malfoy, I'm sorry to say. Unless you want to be the one to incur the wrath of _both_ our fathers; just give me enough time to get far away from them, you selfish little troll."

Draco remained horribly silent and the heavy, leaden pieces began to fall neatly into place in Ginny's mind, each one carrying with it a sickening feeling of dread and nausea. Denial should have set in at that point, but Ginny was not afforded the comforting solace of numbness, instead jumping straightaway to the bitter, gnawing pain. She must have let out a gasp or some other betraying sound of distress (_and I was trying to be so quiet!_), because Ezra and Draco both turned toward her. Ginny noted that Ezra looked extremely guilty.

Draco merely looked sad; the sort of quiet sadness that killed a man in creeping, agonizing moments, years before the body began to die. His face reflected the very same broken heart Ginny felt slicing away at the inside of her chest. 

Covered in blood pudding and misery, Ginny did the only thing that she could:

  
She ran.

~

She'd never been a particularly sporty girl, never quite blooming into the tomboy her mother had expected, Ginny being the only girl born to a family of boys. Her brothers' rowdy, rambunctious play, while delightful to Ginny as a child, hadn't been at all appealing once she'd learned about the glories of makeup and fancy clothes. By the time her Hogwarts letter had arrived, Ginny had become a _girl_ in every sense of the word. 

It had been years since she'd ran like this, but run she did, as though the devil himself was chasing her (_wasn't he?_). Her lungs had already begun to burn and her surroundings were a blur. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard Draco calling out her name; dimly recognized the steady beat of running feet that were not her own. 

One thing she was certain of was this: she could not allow him to catch her. If he caught her, he would try to explain, and there was _nothing_ to be said. All the fantasies she'd had were crumbling around her with every step she took. A few short minutes ago, her biggest worry about the new relationship she was in had been how her parents would take the news. 

Arthur Weasley would yell. That seemed to be a given. Molly would shush him and put an arm around Ginny and be very mother-like, asking questions like, 'are you sure, dear?' and 'is he good enough for you?' to which her father would bluster 'Bloody hell, no, he isn't! He's a Malfoy, isn't he?' and Ginny would cry 'Dad, he's not like the rest of them!' while secretly knowing he _was_ an awful lot like the rest of them, with one big difference: he loved her. He really, truly loved her, even if he never told her so except once, in the vaguest possible way. But still, he _showed_ her that he loved her, and wasn't that more important, anyway? Wasn't that the sort of love you could just feel down to the bone? The sort of love that could conquer all?

"I'm so stupid," she gasped aloud as she finally came to a stop. She'd run all the way to the lake, and was now doubled over by the water, breathing harshly. 

"You're not stupid," Draco said, his own breathing labored as he jogged up beside her. "Though I think you've given me a bloody heart attack. Good God, Woman, have you been doing speed-enhancing charms or something?"

"Amazing how fast you can run with a broken heart, isn't it?" she said a bit hysterically.

"Don't," he said harshly. "Don't say your heart's broken, it can't be broken, I won't let it be."

  
"Well it is!" she snapped, spinning around to face him head on. "It's broken into itty-bitty pieces and I'm never going to forgive you for it!" She gestured widely with her arms. "Draco, you're _engaged_!"

"It's not my bloody fault!" he yelled. "I _told_ you I couldn't make you any promises, I told you from the very beginning! I even tried to make you go away--"

"Well you didn't try hard enough!" she sobbed. "You should have shoved me out the door! You should have pushed me away when I kissed you, you should have--"

  
"What?" he argued. "Broken your heart sooner? Rejected you, made you think I didn't want you?"

"Yes," she said angrily. "It would have been better then. It would have been better if you'd done it then, before . . . before . . ."

"Before what?" he snapped. "Before you loved me?"

"No, idiot, before I knew you loved me!" She hit his chest once, hard, with the flat of her palm. "It was bearable, thinking we'd never be together so long as you didn't love me back. But then you had to go and kiss me and hold me and agree with me when I said I couldn't not love you . . ." There were tears streaming down her face and she had to turn away from him. "Why did you have to agree with me?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered, moving behind her. His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her back to his front, holding her tight. He pressed his face to her neck and she felt his damp cheeks. "I didn't -- I _don't_ understand anything of what I'm feeling."

"What do you mean?" she whispered helplessly.

"I am so desperately, terribly, irrevocably in love with you," he confessed softly. "I've never loved . . ._anything_ nearly like this and it scares me, it scares me to bloody death. I don't know how to behave or how to react or . . . how to turn you away. I don't think I'm built to turn you away, brat."

"But you're going to marry some other girl," she mumbled miserably. It was the first time she'd said it out loud. It didn't seem to make the concept any more bearable. Draco, married to some other girl. Not just any girl, either; _Ezra_. The first friend Ginny had ever made on her own; the first friend who didn't merely tolerate her for Ron's sake. 

"I have to," Draco said quietly. "Our fathers expect it--"

"Don't your stupid fathers realize these aren't the bloody dark ages?!" Ginny cried, bringing one of her hands up to clutch at his forearm around her middle. 

"No," he answered seriously.

They stood like that for a moment. Ginny stared out over the water, willing her eyes to dry up. Trying to stop crying only made her sob harder, until she was hiccuping. Draco rubbed her belly softly; the touch was instinctual and it brought fresh tears to her eyes. 

  
"That's it, then," she said quietly, not realizing she'd spoken aloud until she felt his body tense behind her. "It's over," she said, a bit louder.

"It doesn't have to be," he whispered against her ear, and she turned around to face him.

  
"Draco," she said, almost kindly, "I know you hate to just give up, but even you have to admit that this situation is fairly dire."

"I don't want to lose you, Gin," he said, and his voice was as earnest as she had ever heard it. "I can't walk away from you without a fight."

  
"Who are you fighting?" she asked quietly. "Your father? Yourself?"

"Maybe both," he said tightly. "Run away with me."

Her eyes bugged. "What?"

"You heard me," he said. "The only way we can be together is to go where my father will never find us."

"Just leave everything behind," she said, disbelieving. "My family . . ." 

"I understand if you can't do it. It would mean leaving everything behind, it would mean we only had each other--"

"All right," Ginny said, and she was as surprised at her answer as he was.

"Be sure," he cautioned. "Remember, I've got nothing to lose, nothing to walk away from. You're everything good in my life; I'm probably the worst thing in yours." 

"You're not," she said honestly. "You're . . . Draco, you're what I see when I imagine my future. I see myself with you, I dream myself with you, I . . . I don't know why it happened, and it's so fast, everything was so fast, and I don't know exactly when or even how, but . . .I can't imagine my life without you."

He looked at her for a moment, and it was the same look he gave her last night when she professed to love him: measuring, wary, and desperately wanting to believe. 

"Then meet me here tonight," Draco said. "Say good-byes if you need to. But meet me here and we'll leave before dawn." 

Drawing her toward him, he kissed her desperately, bringing her to him as though he wished to pull her all the way inside his being. All she could do was tearfully mumble the word 'yes' against his mouth.

~

To Be Continued…


	17. Chapter 10: That Thing in the Forest

~

Chapter 10: That Thing In the Forest

"He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before." -- _Homer, The Iliad_

~

__

What do you put into a suitcase when you know you'll never be coming back?

For the past ten minutes, it's the only thing I've been able to think. Do I take all the sweaters Mum's made me, with the enormous Gs on the front, or do I only take one? The newest, because it will last longer, or the oldest, because I've worn it in just so? Do I tell Ron I'm leaving, or do I just go, because he's sure to talk me out of it? Do I want someone to talk me out of it?

Am I prepared to never see my parents again? To never have Mum hold me, or Dad saying just the right thing, at just the right time? What about the twins? No one has ever made me laugh the way Fred and George do. What if I forget how to laugh all together without them playing pranks and telling jokes and generally making a mess of life? 

I haven't even seen Bill in ages. And I never will again, now. Percy, amazing git though he may be, will probably spend years using his Ministry connections to find me. 

Charlie promised to let me come and visit him for the summer after I graduate; said he'd give me a quick 'how to' lesson on dragon care. Told me that if I was really lucky, I might even get to touch one. I can still remember Harry fighting a dragon during third year, how brave he was, how frightened I was for him.

There was danger coming, something big, according to Hermione. How can I just abandon them to it? They've been my friends, real, true friends, whatever the reason we happened to start spending time together. How am I supposed to

~

"Sorry," Ezra said quietly. "You're busy."

Ginny put down her diary and the quill she'd been hastily scribbling with. "It's all right," she replied softly. "I've finished. I wasn't getting much of anywhere with it, anyway." 

"I'm so sorry," Ezra whispered. "I didn't know . . . I _swear_ I didn't know that you were in love with him." 

"I know," Ginny said honestly. 

"I never want to hurt you," Ezra continued. "You were my first friend here."

"You were my first friend, full stop," Ginny noted sadly. 

"Gin," Ezra whispered.

"We're running away together," Ginny announced suddenly. The words sounded strange coming out of her mouth. "We're leaving tonight," she added, making it seem more real.

Ezra opened and closed her mouth, looking surprised. "How very Romeo and Juliet of you," she said at last.

"Who?" Ginny asked.

"Nothing," Ezra said with a dismissive wave. "Doesn't matter. Just hope you don't end up like them."

"You don't seem upset," Ginny said carefully.

"Upset?" Ezra asked, sounding puzzled. "Gin, if you're serious, I'm on cloud nine. I'm over the rainbow. I'm fucking _free_." 

"Glad you're keeping a stiff upper lip," Ginny said dryly.

"Either that, or my father will find someone even more loathsome than the Troll for me," Ezra said to herself.

"He's not loathsome," Ginny said hotly. "And he isn't a troll at all!"

"God, you really do have it bad, don't you?" Ezra noted.

"I'm leaving everything for him," Ginny said simply. "Just to be with him."

"Good luck," Ezra said softly. "I really mean it. If you're stupid enough to think this is going to work, you'll need all the luck you can get."

"Thanks," Ginny whispered. "I think." 

"Just be careful, huh?" Ezra asked. 

Nodding, Ginny stood up and embraced her friend tightly. This might, after all, be the last time they would see each other. 

"Be happy, Ezra," Ginny pleaded. 

"Don't worry about me," Ezra said, pulling away with a cocky grin. "And don't look so worried about yourself, either. You'll run away with him or you won't. Either way, it'll all turn out right in the end, you know?"

"Yeah," Ginny said, trying to convince herself. 

  
"So," Ezra said, glancing around the room, "what are you packing?"

Ginny groaned.

~

The night air was bitterly cold as Ginny shouldered her way out of the one of the castle's massive doors. On her back, she carried everything she owned, fit snugly into her _Lottie Blaggers Ever Expanding Book Bag_, a birthday gift from Fred and George. It was dreadfully heavy, but it meant she now possessed every sweater her mum had ever knit, even the ones that didn't fit anymore. 

Swearing under her breath at the weight, Ginny pulled out her wand, muttered "_Wingardium Leviosa Infinite_," and breathed a sigh of relief as the book bag hovered centimeters from her back. 

Following the familiar path toward the lake, Ginny cast her head down to avoid the sharp, stinging cold, rubbing her hands together, wishing she hadn't packed her gloves. She stared at her feet, each step taking her further away from everything she had ever known. Each step also took her closer to Draco and everything exciting she had always dreamed of. 

It was awfully romantic, she finally concluded, running away with a dangerous man her family would never approve of, living only for each other. It was the sort of story books were written about. Perhaps someday she would write a Memoir, _My Life With a Malfoy or How His Father Tried To Kill Me_ . . .

  
Maybe she wouldn't think about books anymore. 

After a few more minutes of trudging, she came to the realization that she should be at the lake by now. Forcing her head up, she was surprised to feel the wind had lessened. Glancing around, she saw why -- she was on the edges of the Forbidden Forest, and the trees were shielding her. 

__

Strange, she thought, turning and walking toward the castle's light, just barely visible beyond the line of trees.

She hadn't left the path to the lake, and that path went nowhere near the Forbidden Forest. At least, she hadn't thought so. 

A branch broke beside her, and she heard the cry of an animal. Ginny spun around, but saw nothing. Turning back again, she found that she was even _deeper_ inside the forest. She spun around a few times, trying desperately to locate the lights from the castle, but there was nothing but darkness. 

Pulling out her wand, Ginny murmured "_Lumos_" to no effect. Smacking the tip of her wand against her palm a few times, Ginny tried again. Nothing. _If a simple spell like Lumos won't work, _she thought, _I doubt that homing spell I've been working on will do much, either_.

Still, she decided to try. She flicked her wrist, but as she was about to murmur the incantation--

--She found that her hand was empty, her wand vanished. 

Ginny stared at her empty hand for a moment, then opened her mouth and screamed for help. Someone had to hear her, surely, Hagrid, who lived so close to the forest, or even Filch who was always prowling around with his horrid cat . . .

There was another rustling sound, followed by what Ginny thought might be a growl. Deciding that screaming (and thereby alerting anything listening to her presence) might not be the best idea, after all, Ginny took off at a run, figuring that, eventually, she would have to come out on one side of the forest. 

Tree branches reached out and clawed at her as she ran, leaving telltale scratches on her hands, the sides of her cheeks. After a few moments, it felt as though she'd been running forever, and she had to stop, breathing heavily. She decided that, if she ever got out of this forest, she would start being more active so that she could run more than five minutes at a time without feeling like she was about to die. 

  
Just as she was about to straighten up, a hand touched her shoulder, and she screamed, turning quickly--

--to find Draco standing before her. 

Letting out a tiny sob of relief, Ginny threw her arms around his neck. His arms went around her back and he murmured softly into her ear, shushing her. 

"Oh, God, I was so scared," she cried. "I don't know what's going on, but we've got to get out of here, something strange is going on, Hermione told me earlier that things were going to happen, but I don't--"

Draco stepped away from her, forcing her arms to drop from around his neck. There was just enough light from the full moon above for her to see his features up close, and she let out a gasp. His mouth was twisted into a sneer the likes of which she hadn't seen since he was a child, and there was a cruel, hateful gleam in his eyes.

"Stop your caterwauling," he ordered harshly. "The screeching's about to make me go deaf."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm just scared--"

"Yes, you're always scared about something, aren't you?" he continued nastily.

"I don't know what you mean," she said, sniffing back a sob.

"Of course you don't," he barked out, nearly laughing. "You're such a naïve, stupid girl. You're not worth it though, are you, Ginny? You're not worth giving everything up for, you're not worth anything."

  
"How can you say that to me?" she yelled. "You . . . _You_ were the one who wanted to run away--"

"Just give it up, all right?" he said coldly. "You don't exist to me. You're _nothing_ to me, you're invisible. Got it?"

"You're lying!" she screamed, shoving at his chest. "Why are you lying? You can't mean this, you love me, I know that you do!" 

__

Does he? a small, traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. _Did he ever, or were you nothing more than a distraction?_

"This isn't real," she whispered, and as she went to shove at his chest again, her palm hit nothing but air. Blinking, she stepped back from where he'd been standing, wondering if she was losing her mind.

Once again, she took flight, running as hard and as fast as she could. That hadn't been Draco, she was sure now. Something strange was going on, but it wasn't real, and all she had to do was keep her wits about her, keep reminding herself that none of it was real, and she would get out of this . . .

There! Up ahead, a faint light shone, a fire, perhaps. Hagrid sometimes liked to burn old leaves. Ginny ran toward it. 

  
But it wasn't Hagrid at all. It was a campfire, and there were people gathered around it. Not just any people, though; Ginny recognized them.

It was her family.

Their robes were more tattered than usual, and they appeared to be roasting something over the fire; something that looked an awful lot like a snake. They were talking, and Ginny tried to speak, but her attempts to gain their attention went unnoticed. 

"Went to visit Fred and George yesterday," Mrs. Weasley was saying. 

"How are they?" Ron asked, and his voice seemed hopeful.

"Trying to keep good spirits," Mrs. Weasley said, but she looked weary and older than Ginny had ever seen her. 

"It'll be all right, Mum," Charlie said, placing an arm around his mother.

"Yeah," Bill agreed. "You know them, they'll find a way out of it."

"They're not at summer camp, you know," Ron snapped. "They're in bloody Azkaban! They were found with _Death Eaters_, Bill! People found dealing with Death Eaters don't just walk out of bloody Azkaban!"

"My boys aren't Death Eaters!" Mrs. Weasley sobbed.

"Of course not, Mum," Charlie soothed, glaring at Ron. "They were just . . . doing business with the wrong sort, that's all. Trying to earn a semi-honest sickle if they could."

"Dad?" Ginny said aloud. She didn't expect them to hear her, but she had just noticed that her father wasn't sitting around the fire with everyone else. 

"It'll all turn out right," Ron said finally, seeming to have calmed himself. "I got another job, something to do on weekends. We'll make do." 

"The twins in Azkaban, Ginny gone God knows where . . . I can't believe I'm saying this," Mrs. Weasley said, "but I'm almost glad your father didn't live to see it."

Letting out a tiny gasp of horror, Ginny started backing away from the scene before her, her heart actually aching beneath her breast. _The Order_, she thought numbly. It hadn't been a sudden fancy that had struck her, wanting to join them. She'd wanted to make something of her life, to help her family out. What was happening to her? Was this the future, her family's future after she ran away? And what of she and Draco? Would he turn cruel again, leaving her with nothing after she gave everything for him?

Turning in circles again, she had wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to quell the sense of dread bubbling up inside her.

Something caught the corner of her eye and she moved toward it, almost beyond panic now. It was another fire, this time, burning brightly in the hearth of what appeared to be a hotel room. The curtains were open and bright, blinding sunshine filtered into the room, illuminating two figures on the bed, wrapped up in the covers and each other. Looking closer, Ginny saw that the woman was herself, and the man, Draco. They looked older, but more importantly, the looked happy.

Ginny watched the expression on her face, wondering if that contended, peaceful look was the one Draco saw. Her gaze ticked to Draco, and she realized that he looked exactly as he had in her dream. This, then, was what she would be giving up for her family. 

She blinked, and the scene was gone, replaced by an explosion. Ginny noted the sound of it absently, every detail. It came from magic of some kind, she could feel it, feel the magic resonating in the air. Staring up at the sky, she was no longer in the forest, but now in the middle of nothing, of wide, vast emptiness, the earth scorched, the sky gray, and nothing to be seen for miles.

Another turn in place, and she stood alone at a grave, the marker reading 'Malfoy.' In the distance, she saw Draco, as though he were there, but not really present. Looking closer at the marker, she saw that it read _Ezra Malfoy_ and she put her hand over her mouth. Then that, too, dissolved and there was a funeral with hundreds of people gathered. Ginny picked Harry and Hermione out of the crowd, holding hands, as they tried not to cry. Ron was with them, and Snape, all looking distraught and oh, God, she knew who had died this time . . .

Then, before she could process any of it, she was simply standing in the forest again, and in the distance, was Albus Dumbledore.

"Professor," Ginny gasped.

"It's quite a lot to take in," Dumbledore said kindly. "Miss Granger is the only student who's ever adapted easily to it. She seemed rather upset she had no quill to take notes."

"Notes," Ginny said slowly.

"After all," Dumbledore continued, "a glimpse of your life -- a glimpse into your heart, and your hope, and your fear -- is an incredibly appealing prospect, and one it would do to retain memory of."

"That was my future?" Ginny wondered.

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said. "Or perhaps it's what you fear or hope for. Perhaps those things are not mutually exclusive."

"Why?" Ginny wondered, feeling breathless.

"To prepare you," Dumbledore said kindly. "Your final year at Hogwarts is when you will make the most important decisions of your life."

__

Maybe even a bit sooner, Ginny thought crazily.

"There is a reason the Forbidden Forest is so named," Dumbledore explained. "It is not for the creatures that live in it, though they are most ferocious. It is the nature of the forest that earns its title. The forest knows the soul of every body that has ever entered it and, at the right time, reflects that knowledge back to each soul. The message may be a bit hard to read, but you'll figure it out one day." 

"I think I already have, Professor," Ginny said softly.

Dumbledore smiled, and he reminded Ginny then of a grandfather; not _her_ grandfather, but somebody's grandfather, kindly and gentle, smelling ever so faintly of tobacco.

"Usually," Dumbledore said after a moment, "Professor McGonagall meets the Gryffindor students after their visions, Professor Snape the Slytherins, and so on for each house head." Moving forward, he placed a hand on Ginny's shoulder. "But I have reason to believe that you, my dear, would have visions of great importance, not only to yourself, as everyone's visions are, but to the world. And we are on the cusp of a very important time."

"I saw--" Ginny began.

"Oh, my dear girl, I don't want you to tell me," Dumbledore said with a chuckle. "No, no, I don't want to know the future. If I did, there would be easier ways of learning it."

"But you don't even know what I've seen," Ginny said, tears in her eyes, "you don't know what I'm going to do about it!" _You have to tell me what to do_! she thought desperately.

"Ah, yes. But there is the one thing that I do know." He tapped a fingertip over her chest. "Your heart." His eyes twinkled, and he smiled gently at her. "I simply wanted to be here in person to assure you that . . . it'll all turn out right in the end." The forest did something strange then, melted into Kyle, saying the same words to her, then to Hermione, Ezra, and, finally, to Draco. 

__

It'll all turn out right in the end.

"Will it?" she whispered, asking the question again. Dumbledore's eyes seemed to twinkle more.

"It has to, doesn't it?" he commented matter-of-factly. 

And then, Dumbledore disappeared, the forest melted away, and Ginny found herself back where she'd started, on the path to the lake, on her way to meet Draco. Part of her wanted to pretend it had all been a dream, or a hallucination or something, but she couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to the gift that she had been given tonight to ignore it, no matter how much she wanted to. Her vision hadn't been totally coherent, but the instinct she had was clear as glass.

Her heart heavier than the weight of her book bag (pre-incantation), Ginny set off toward Draco. 

~

When she finally reached him, he was standing, his back to her, staring out at the water. Time was the one thing they didn't have, but Ginny thought that she could spare this much, these few precious seconds to watch him. 

The moonlight was sifting through his hair and he'd forgotten to comb it again. Draco never forgot to comb his hair, and her stomach flipped over. Only love could make a boy as vain as Draco forget to spend his requisite half-hour in front of the mirror.

Walking toward him, she shrugged off her book bag, the soft thud against the ground causing him to turn toward her. He stared at her for a moment, an unreadable expression on his face. Finally, he moved, stepping just far enough into the moonlight to cast shadows against his face, giving him ample opportunity to study hers. 

"So that's it, then," he said quietly, but the humorless tilt to his lips let her know that he was conscious of echoing the heartbroken words she'd spoken to him earlier that day.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears springing to her eyes, "I can't . . . I just can't do it. I'm so, so sorry--"

"Don't," he said, and his voice was harsh and gentle at the same time. He strode forward and gathered her against him, holding tight. "You don't have to be sorry for deciding you can't throw your life away, after all."

"But I am," she sobbed, clutching at his back. "I wanted to be impulsive and follow my heart and take all these risks, but . . . Draco, I'm sixteen years old; much too young to make a decision like this. And you! How are you to know you'd even want me five, ten years down the road?"

"I know," he murmured quietly, pulling away from her. "But I also understand."

"It's not just that," she admitted, wringing her hands together nervously. "I have a huge family that would be completely devastated if I just disappeared, especially . . ."

"Especially if they realized you'd disappeared with me," he noted sadly.

"This isn't a story," she said after a moment, trying to convince herself as much as him. "It's not Romeo and Juliet," she added, having no idea what it meant, but remembering Ezra's comparison. 

"Thank God for that," he said, causing her to glance up at him in surprise. "I don't fancy dying anytime soon." He looked at her with great affection. "And I certainly don't fancy _you_ dying anytime soon, which is exactly what would happen if my father ever found us."

"How do you know about Romeo and Juliet?" she asked.

He looked a bit sheepish. As sheepish as Draco Malfoy was capable of, that is. "Ezra -- she used to bring Muggle books around when we were children. Still does, over summer holidays. Loves Shakespeare and Douglas Adams and Judith McNaught. Goads me into reading by calling me a stupid, useless prat until I give in, just to shut her up."

The words were harsh, but as Ginny watched his face, and listened to his tone, she realized that she was getting her first glimpse of a fond Draco Malfoy childhood memory. To think, he'd actually enjoyed reading Muggle books with a girl he'd hated because of the roles they were both forced to play. 

"It sounds like you might have enjoyed it a bit," Ginny said carefully.

"Rubbish," Draco declared dismissively. "Can't believe she wastes so much time reading Muggle trash. Bloody hell, I can't believe she's gotten _me_ to waste so much time reading it."

She wondered if Draco had had such an awful childhood that the idea of having a pleasant memory from that time was incomprehensible to him, and he was unable to recognize it for what it was. Either that or he was so far in denial, so sure that he hated Ezra and she hated him and that they were going to have this horrible life together, just to spite their fathers, if nothing else . . .

"I'm not at all inconspicuous," she said after a moment, trying not to cry again. "And I'm horrible at blending in with a crowd. We wouldn't have lasted a year. So, really, it's for the best, you know?"

"Right," he agreed hollowly. "We'd have been miserable."

"No money, no legal jobs," Ginny said. "How would we have survived?"

"I've got access to my family's vault," Draco said. "I was going to cast an anti-tracking charm on all the money, then steal it. I figured we could go to Paris, or maybe even someplace tropical, buy a house, maybe even . . ." He laughed a little. "Maybe even live among Muggles. It's the last place my father would ever look for me."

"You've given this a lot of thought," Ginny said slowly.

"Not just recently, so don't go feeling bad about not going," he said. "I've . . . I've thought about leaving before, about getting away. I just . . ." He looked at her intensely. "I've just always lacked the proper incentive."

"I want to go with you," she blurted out. "All that stuff I said about being too young, it's utter rubbish. I know what I want. I may be confused about some things, but I know that I want you. It's just . . . I just came from . . . It was the strangest thing--"

"You've come from the Forbidden Forest," he said, realization dawning on his face. "That's right, it's the end of your sixth year."

"Of course," Ginny said slowly, "you would have gone through it yourself." Her brows knit together. "Why hadn't I heard about it before? Ron let something slip once, but Hermione shut him up right quick."

"They don't like us talking about it," Draco explained. "Some of us don't _want_ to talk about it," he said dryly. "I know all I wanted was to forget what I saw."

"What did you see?" she asked curiously.

  
"It sent me for a loop, I'll tell you that," he muttered. "Made me reevaluate a lot of things in my life. Even made me start wondering just how hard it would be to disappear from this life forever, start over somewhere else. Dumbledore said--"

"Professor Dumbledore was there?" Ginny interrupted. "It wasn't Snape?"

  
"No," Draco said slowly, looking confused. "Should it have been Snape?"

"No," Ginny said quickly, "I just assumed -- you know, Snape being head of Slytherin House and all -- go on," she said firmly, shutting her mouth. So Dumbledore had been there for Draco, as he had been for Ginny, but he hadn't explained why to Draco. What did that mean?

"The summer holiday I had last year was . . . different than it had ever been before," he continued. "Even Father noticed it. Said he didn't like the disinterest I was showing in certain aspects of my future. When I got back to Hogwarts, I found that I'd lost interest in a lot of things that used to be important to me -- making Potter's life miserable, for one. Picking on his girlfriend, for another."

"Your delight in picking on my brother seems undiminished," she noted dryly.

"Yes, thank God that never gets old," Draco said cheerfully.

She found herself starting to laugh before she remembered that her heart was broken, and it was bad form to laugh when one's heart was broken. A few tears fell down her cheeks, and she did not protest as he gathered her into his arms again.

"I don't want this to be over," she whispered against the side of his neck.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," he murmured quietly. "And since I've learned absolutely everything I'm capable of for N.E.W.T.s next week, I've nothing better to do than spend it with you."

"Arrogant prig," she murmured affectionately, giving him a tearful squeeze.

"Is that a yes?"

"Promise me no hanky-panky?"

Pulling back, he raised an eyebrow at her.

  
She pretended to think about what she'd said. "Sorry, did I say 'no hanky-panky?' I meant promise me nothing _but_ hanky-panky. I always get that confused."

"You're insane," he said seriously. "I can't believe I was thinking about running off with an insane person."

"Yes, you certainly dodged that one, didn't you?" Her eyes were filled with tears, but her spirit was lighter than it had been a few moments ago. He did that for her, took the guilt she felt away. She was losing him, still, they were about to be parted -- perhaps forever -- and she was fairly certain her heart was broken beyond all repair, but for the first time, she was really beginning to believe everything would work out all right. It had to. 

"Shut up and come here," he ordered her, and she kissed him, though she imagined it couldn't have been a very good kiss, because the whole way through it, she couldn't quite decide if she wanted to laugh or cry. 

"What time tomorrow?" she asked a moment later.

  
"Lunch?" he offered, sounding as though he missed her already. She sort of liked that. "Perhaps after we eat you can force me to learn about something incredibly dull."

"Good times," she agreed cheekily, stepping away from him. She picked up her book bag and started to walk away, because if she didn't do it right then, she never would.

"Gin," he called out, and she turned to face him, a few feet away. "What exactly did you see in the forest?"

"A glimpse into the future," she answered after a moment's pause. "A glimpse into my heart -- what I hope, and what I fear, and what's inevitable, no matter how hard I fight against it." Another pause, and she debated whether to ask him or not. Before, it had seemed to her that he'd been trying to avoid telling her. _Nothing gambled, nothing gained _. . . "What about you? What did you see, Draco?"

His face contorted from one inscrutable expression to another, and he seemed to be conducting a silent argument with himself over what, exactly, he was supposed to say. Finally, he smiled a funny, ironic little smile, and said ruefully:

"I saw you."

~


	18. Chapter 11: Romeo and Juliet, Meet Draco...

AN: A lot of you have been wondering each time we get to the end of a chapter, if this is the end or not -- trust me when I say, when we get to the end, you'll know it. There will be a big "END" written there, along with some author's endnotes. That end, however, isn't that far off. *g*

This is part a of the last chapter. Part b should be ready no later than Monday night. An epilogue will follow sometime next week. I promise that all the time invested will be worth it, and that everything really will turn out right in the end. ;-)

To be safe, I'm giving this one an R for a sexual situation that really can't be edited.

As always, all my non-slashy-love to Sarea, who is more of an inspiration than she knows. 

~

Chapter 11: Romeo and Juliet, Meet Draco and Ginny

"He kissed me and now I am somebody else." -- _Gabriella Mistral, He Kissed Me_

~

__

So I'm not running away from home after all. If you talked back (which, I've got to say again, I'm awfully glad you don't) you'd probably be glad I'm staying, because really, what else have you got to do all day but listen to me? Now that I think about it, I should spend less time feeling sorry for myself, and more time feeling sorry for you.

I know I've made the right decision. Neither of us was ready to be the only people in each other's lives. And it's just not possible for me to abandon my family forever -- I physically can't do it. I kept seeing this image in my head, of the clock in our kitchen at home, the dial that says Ginny forever pointing to 'Whereabouts Unknown'_ or, heaven forbid, '_In Mortal Danger.'_ Mum would go mad staring at it._

The only question that remains is, what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life, carrying around a broken heart? I really don't think it's going to heal. I broke a dish of Mum's once, and she tried a 'Repairo' spell on it, and it just wouldn't work. 

  
"When it's in too many pieces, it's no good trying to fix it," she'd said, "because it never goes back together right again."

That's exactly how I feel, like I've been broken into too many pieces, and someone's tried to 'Repairo' me, but no matter how hard they try, I just won't go back together right again. 

I miss him. It's only been an hour since I left him, I'll be seeing him tomorrow, and I miss him with an ancient ache, pounding against the pieces of my broken heart. 

And now, on top of it all, I've resorted to writing ridiculously cliché sentiments in the pages of my diary. How am I to

~

"This is getting to be a habit with you," Ginny noted as she shut her diary. 

"Sorry," Ezra mumbled. "I didn't realize anyone else would still be up. I was meeting Seamus , and . . ."

"And we members of the Eternally Screwed With By Fate club always meet up this late in the Gryffindor common room," Ginny noted sadly. "Seamus not joining us tonight? I'd say he's as much a part of it as you and me."

"He wanted some time alone," Ezra said, a slight hitch in her voice. 

"Why?" Ginny asked softly.

"Because I told him everything," Ezra confessed. "I tried breaking up with him earlier today, but he kept going on about not accepting it without a good reason. Kept saying that he loved me, making a big deal of it. I told him he shouldn't love me, and that if he was smart, he'd get as far away from me as possible." A tear fell down her cheek. "He said he would, if I told him I didn't love him. So . . . I did." 

  
"Oh, Ezra," Ginny said lamely, getting up and coming to sit beside Ezra, where she'd just collapsed onto the couch.

"It's not fair!" Ezra sobbed. "I've just found someone that I love, and it's all going to be taken away. I'm going to have an awful life, with an awful marriage and there's nothing I can do about it. It's not fair to me, or to Seamus , or to you. It's not even fair to that miserable little troll I have to marry!"

"No, it's not fair at all," Ginny agreed quietly. "But whinging about it isn't going to help."

"Ginny," Ezra said, sounding aggrieved.

  
"I'm sorry," Ginny said firmly, "but you're going to have to get off this self-pity kick you've been on for the better part of your life. Marrying Draco is _not_ a fate worse than death. I would _kill_ to be you, Ezra," she said desperately.

"But I don't love him," Ezra said, somewhat hysterically. "You do, and bully for you, but I can't stand him!"

"That's not true," Ginny said stubbornly, "it's not true on either of your parts. You resent each other, but you shouldn't. You're both involved, and if you're going to survive it, you're going to have to be in it together. I intend to tell him the same thing." 

"It's easy for you to say," Ezra began hotly.

  
"No, it's really not," Ginny said simply. "It's the hardest thing I've ever had to say, but I'm going to, because I care about you both too much to let it go. It's got to be you and him against everything else, because you'll both be eaten alive if it isn't. There's so much coming, Ezra, so much I still don't know . . . but the one thing I _do_ know, is that we're all going to have to pick sides. We're going to have to trust each other, and if you and Draco can't be in love, at the very least, you can be partners."

"You don't understand," Ezra stubbornly insisted. "You can't imagine what it's like to have your entire life's happiness decided by a couple of plotting old men!"

"Right," Ginny said stiffly, "I'm sure Seamus and I have no idea what that feels like." Gathering up her diary and quill, Ginny stood up and turned to leave.

"I'm sorry," Ezra called out. "I'm so sorry you've gotten hurt--"

"Don't be sorry," Ginny said stoically, not turning around. "Just make sure it's worth it, Ezra. Make sure all this pain doesn't turn into what your father's want it to. If you can't do it for yourselves, or each other, or, Lord knows, for the future of the _world_, please, do it for Seamus and me and for what we've lost."

Then, Ginny headed up to the girl's dormitories, leaving Ezra staring behind her.

~

The next day seemed to go by like a blur, the time slipping away no matter how hard Ginny tried to make it last.

Breakfast was a tense affair, Ginny avoiding Ron's questions of why she looked so tired. Once Harry and Hermione came down to breakfast, he backed off, the three of them going into a huddle for the rest of the morning. Ginny had never been so grateful for their troika before in her life. The last thing she wanted was to explain to people who didn't like Draco that she was despondent over losing him.

Morning dragged on, but the moment afternoon came, the moment she trudged down to the lake and saw him standing by the water, head bowed in almost poetic defeat, time seemed to rush by. 

He greeted her with a kiss, and it made her cry; he teased her about the way her brother had been casting him dirty looks over breakfast, and it made her cry. The way he brushed his knuckles against her cheek made her cry, and when he started to read from one of the books she'd brought, the sound of his voice made her cry, because she imagined it was the way he'd sound reading his children to sleep.

"And then the noble wizard slit his own wrists because he could tell the love his life wasn't even listening, the end," Draco concluded dryly.

"Sorry," Ginny said, blinking. The sun was setting and the crisp night air was upon them. She had been lulled by the sound of his voice, she realized. 

"Where were you?" he asked curiously.

  
"Right here," she assured him. His head rested in her lap and she sat upright against a tree. Her fingers drifted through his hair lazily. "Just feeling sorry for myself."

"I think you're bored off your arse by _A Wizard by Any Other Name._"

"Could be," she conceded with a small grin, staring down into his face.

Tossing _A Wizard by Any Other Name_ aside, Draco rifled through her bag until he produced a book of mythology from her Muggle Studies class. He flipped through it as though he were looking for something in particular. 

"What are you looking for?" she asked softly.

"Something Ezra and I never read together," he said firmly. "Something that can just be yours and mine."

"I like the sound of that." She continued to stroke his hair as he looked, memorizing the expression on his face so that she could always remember how beautiful he was when he concentrated totally on something. 

"Here we are," he pronounced at last, and he began to read. 

This time, Ginny was unable to do anything but concentrate fully on the story, enthralled with the tale of Cupid and Psyche. 

In the fable, Cupid, the son of Gods, fell in love with Psyche and gave her everything her heart desired. Defying his mother's wishes, he married Psyche and all that he asked of her was that she not look upon his face. He made love to her in the dark and left her alone in a grand house in the day. Psyche's sisters, jealous of their sister's good fortune, convinced Psyche that her husband was a terrible and monstrous serpent, and that she must look upon him, and if it was so, kill him.

But Cupid was no monster; his golden ringlets and snowy skin the perfect accompaniment for a being with wings of an angel. Psyche injured Cupid terribly, physically by accidentally spilling the oil from her candle upon his flesh and emotionally by betraying his trust. 

Cupid left Psyche, and she was forced to wander the earth in search of her lover. Finally, she came upon Cupid's mother, Venus, and begged her for her help. Venus devised a series of tests impossible in scope, sure that Psyche would fail. Seeing this, Cupid lent his resources to Psyche's aid, allowing her to succeed at each of his mother's tasks. 

"Then Cupid," Draco said, his voice possessing the gentle timbre of a natural storyteller, "as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before Jupiter with his supplication. Jupiter lent a favoring ear, and pleaded the cause of the lovers so earnestly with Venus that he won her consent. On this he sent Mercury to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, handing her a cup of ambrosia, he said, 'Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual.' Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in due time, they had a daughter born to them whose name was Pleasure." He paused, brows knit, staring down at the book for a moment. "Not much of an ending, is it?" he said at last. "More like it just ends."

"Not really," Ginny disagreed. "They lived happily ever after, didn't they?"

"It's not going to be us, Gin," Draco said harshly. Harsher than he'd intended, she could tell, from the instant flair of guilt in his eyes.

It was pitch-black now, and Draco had been reading by the light of his wand. She took the book from his hand and set it aside, both her hands losing themselves in his hair, massaging his scalp gently.

"No," she agreed quietly. "It won't be us. But we do have something, Draco, something no one will ever be able to take away from us."

  
"And what's that?" he asked, his voice tinged with bitterness.

"How much I love you," she told him in a sure, quiet voice. "And how much I know you love me, even if you do have a bit of trouble saying the words unless I'm upset with you."

"I love you," he said, almost grudgingly. "I've said it before."

"Yes, and now you've said it again," she agreed, her voice smug.

"Witch," he muttered.

"Not just yet," she disagreed. "I've got another year at school still."

"Brat," he growled as he sat up, pulled her beneath him and began kissing her senseless. Muttering an incantation under his breath, Draco doused the light on the end of his wand.

  
"Don't fancy looking at me?" she murmured playfully.

"Don't fancy any of the perverts up in Gryffindor Tower looking at you," he muttered, undoing the emerald cloak she wore. 

Their mouths met again and again, gentle, playful presses of lip to lip as they divested one another of clothing. His hands took greedy passes at her skin, moving over her body at a hurried, near frantic pace, as though he would never be able to touch enough of her. Ginny was torn between closing her eyes, to pretend this wouldn't be the last time she'd ever hold him, and keeping them open wide, to memorize the exact position of each of the stars in the sky as he made love to her.

Wrapped up in his arms, their bodies rocking together gently, Ginny caught their reflection in the still waters of the lake. They were beautiful, tangled together, and as she stared, she realized Draco was looking at the same thing. They both turned toward each other at once, and she reached her hand up to brush the silver-blond hair away from his face.

"What else is there?" she asked desperately, their foreheads pressed together, beads of sweat mingling against their flesh, her brain short-circuiting in the face of this precious, simple closeness. "There can't possibly be another world out there besides this one, there just can't be."

He didn't answer, only kissed her again and again and again, until she forgot what she was trying to say, forgot that other world, forgot everything but how easy it was to love him.

Later, beneath the darkened sky, still wrapped around each other, she remembered how to think and worry and ache. And in her head she heard words whispering over and over, not in her voice, nor in Draco's, not in any voice she could recognize clearly, but they were an answer, the only answer she had, the only shred of hope she had to cling to:

__

It'll all turn out right in the end.

~

To be continued


	19. Chapter 11: Romeo and Juliet, Meet Draco...

~

Monday was the hardest day. It was strange, not worrying over whatever task Draco had set out for her. She had only been "following his orders" for just under a month, and yet it seemed unthinkable to no longer do so. It was amazing how quickly a person could adapt to a new life. Would she adapt to life without him just as fast?

Classes were easy, given that they were the only time it seemed that Ginny _didn't_ have to see Draco. At lunch, it seemed Draco was always staring at her, though she did her best to avoid his gaze. In the halls, it was as though she had some sort of Draco Homing Beacon and would inevitably drift toward where he was walking. They'd nearly collided half a dozen times. 

The most painful moment was when Draco had actually approached her, trying to explain that his and Ezra's mothers had placed an announcement in the morning's Daily Prophet, celebrating his and Ezra's forthcoming marriage. He didn't want Ginny to hear it from someone else, he said, and she hadn't been able to do anything but nod and turn away from him.

That night, she'd cried herself to sleep and Tuesday wasn't shaping up to be any better. It was lunchtime and she was sitting out by the lake, leaning up against the same tree she and Draco had read under so many times; the tree they'd made love under. Just the thought was enough to prompt a fresh wave of tears, and she really was getting sick of crying so much.

"May I?"

Snapping her head up, Ginny frowned to see a robed figure standing before her. Something about the voice, though . . .

"Cassandra?" Ginny asked, sniffing.

"Yes," Cassandra confirmed, taking a seat beside Ginny. They were silent for a time, until Cassandra spoke softly. "It's been a cold winter, hasn't it?"

"Not as cold as some," Ginny disagreed quietly, thinking of how she hadn't been able to feel the chill in the air at all as she and Draco slept beneath the stars.

"And it seems to have gone on quite long," she continued. 

"Not nearly long enough," Ginny said with a humorless laugh.

Cassandra sighed. "I've come to deliver a message."

"What message?" Ginny mumbled.

"You have passed your test."

"Yay," Ginny said hollowly.

"I'm sorry," Cassandra said softly. "So very sorry that it had to be this way."

Ginny's eyebrows knit together. "Why are you sorry? What are you on about?"

Cassandra took a deep breath, her face shadowed, both by the hood she wore and the thick black fall of her hair. Cassandra's hands sat placidly atop her thighs, and, Ginny noticed, appeared sturdy and lightly callused as though accustomed to physical stress.

"There are portents and prophecies at work here," Cassandra began slowly. "The Aurors that are among the Order's members have seen as far into the future as they are able, and we have heard their counsel. An unlikely figure was placed squarely at the center of the little melodrama the world will soon find itself in, a figure whose loyalties in the coming days is undecided."

"Draco," Ginny guessed softly.

"Yes," Cassandra confirmed, and there was a smile in her voice. "At the center, was Draco. But you, Ginny, were hovering around him."

"Me?" Ginny did not mention her own dreams and visions. There was so little she genuinely understood about them, and so much yet to learn.

"We know what you will be someday, with or without us," Cassandra continued. "Your road will simply be faster, and filled with fewer obstacles with our help."

"My road," Ginny said slowly.

"We are also aware of all that Malfoy could be someday; we know who he might have been had he never known you, and we know who he has the chance to be, now that he has. All that is left for us to do now, is hope. I am very, very sorry that your heart has been caught in the middle."

"What about his heart?" Ginny asked hoarsely, fury bubbling up beneath the layers of pain around her heart. "Don't you have any platitudes for what this has done to him? He's the one who has to marry someone he doesn't love!" 

"His heart has always been the issue," Cassandra said gently. "His heart is the reason Draco Malfoy was made your task. It required special care, care that our Aurors assured us only you could give."

"I don't understand," Ginny said miserably.

"You will," Cassandra said gently.

"I'm so sick of people telling me that," Ginny snapped. "I'm sick of being told it will be all right someday, with no guarantee of when, or even how. I'm sick of knowing that I'm going to love him until I die, and I'll never be able to have him again. I hate that me loving him has to be treated like it's some dirty little secret no one must ever know about, because if they did, his father would go into a mad rage and have me killed!" She laughed, a bit hysterically. "Can you believe that? My not-quite-boyfriend's father would actually have me killed."

"Not all secrets are dirty," Cassandra said kindly.

Ginny gave her a confused look, and Cassandra pulled back the hood of her robe, letting her long black hair fall away from her face. Ginny gasped.

"Cho?" she whispered.

Cho Chang grinned at her, her eyes as big and lovely as ever, her hair the finely spun silk Ginny had coveted for as long as she could remember. "We all have our little secrets," Cho confided quietly. "Secrets that no one in the world ever fully understand; secrets that are never really put to rest. Perhaps Mr. Malfoy will always be yours."

~

Wednesday went surprisingly well.

Professor McGonagall excused Ginny from class because a representative from the Daily Prophet wished to speak to her. Ginny spent the day having an impromptu interview for what would be her very first summer internship. She'd been a member of the Order for less than 24 hours, and already doors were opening wide for her.

Her first story assignment was enough to make her laugh, but only because she'd had enough of crying recently: she was to get quotes from the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy and write one thousand words or less on what a lovely couple they made for a future article. If she did a good enough job, it would be published; if she turned in a crap story, it would be a damn long time before she was allowed to write another.

Draco passed his N.E.W.T.s with flying colors, even managing to get a ninety on his Herbology final. Ginny was positive it would have been a perfect score if they had spent more of their time in the past few days studying instead of . . . well.

Ezra had started walking along the halls with Draco. They seemed to be making an effort at being friends, for which Ginny was grateful. She hadn't spoken to Ezra since that last night in the common room, and while Ginny was sorry for the distance between them, she honestly wasn't sure that she could handle anything else. It caused her physical pain to think of Ezra and Draco marrying and it was hard enough, getting through each day, seeing them together, without having to put up a brave front for Ezra.

Sometimes, Draco would pass her in the halls, he with his friends, Ginny with Kyle and Lysandra, and they would look at each other at the same moment, in the same way, and she would realize: this was all they were to each other now, longing glances across a sea of people. And she would think, _how maudlin and sad_, then grow incredibly depressed to remember that this wasn't a story, it was her life, and her broken heart.

But her heart wasn't quite all broken any longer. It was damaged, certainly, but maybe not beyond all repair. Because Ginny had been thinking a lot lately. She'd done little else but think, and had come to the following conclusion: if her relationship with Draco had some sort of preordained quality to it . . . it couldn't just _end_. Fated things didn't just end. Fate itself wouldn't be that cruel. She wouldn't hope out loud, of course, wouldn't even hope in the pages of her diary, but in her heart, deep, deep down where she couldn't check in on it every day, she would believe that one day, everything would be all right. 

~

__

A New Day for Love

August 8th, 1999: Malfoy Manor

A year ago today, the entire Wizarding world spent the day congratulating the Malfoy and Easton clans on what was reported to be a long-awaited joining of their families. Ezra Easton and Draco Malfoy have been betrothed since birth. Last year, they graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and as of one day of this article being written, they were married at last.

This reporter has been working for the Daily Prophet for nearly a year now, and it has taken some time for this story to see the light of day. Draco Malfoy and Ezra Easton were my first assignment, and the article I turned in was ultimately rejected. I did, however, save it, because something from it remains relevant even now. It was a few days before end of term, and Malfoy and Easton were sitting alone in the halls, as they often did then, lost in their own world as I asked them about their goals.

"What are my goals for the future?" Malfoy said, his family's trademark smirk proudly displayed. "I suppose I'd like to learn to get out of answering stupid questions from junior reporters."

"We want to be happy," Easton interjected. "That's the only real goal we have -- to be happy, and to do our best to see that the people around us are happy, as well."

One year later and Malfoy and Easton seem to be holding true to the same beliefs:

"You again," Malfoy commented upon spotting me at the reception. "Were you invited?"

"Married life is good," said the new Mrs. Malfoy, toasting her husband. "To our partnership and all the rewards it will reap." 

As regular readers of the Daily Prophet are no doubt aware, the Malfoy and Easton families have been linked to You-Know-Who for years. With suspicion rising that supporters of You-Know-Who have begun gathering again, speculation has begun as to just what father-of-the-bride Edmond Easton's bid to head a new department at the Ministry of Magic may mean, not to mention his desire to appoint his daughter to the office in some capacity or another. Further complicating matters is the fact that this new department is a pet project of none other than famous wizard Harry Potter and his fiancé, Hermione Granger. 

Potter and Granger were present at the festivities at Malfoy Manor. The two have been in talks with the new Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy for some time now about support for the planned Muggle Technology and Magical Cooperation bill that is going up for round table discussion at the Ministry in the next few months. 

Parents of the bride and groom declined to comment on their children's nuptials, but Lucius Malfoy and Edmond Easton were overheard to have said that they are "pleased" that the strong foundation of their family's union will finally be allowed to grow together. 

The new Mrs. Malfoy summed things up best:

  
"Most people don't find the person they're going to love for the rest of their life when they're five. It's just not been my experience. Draco and I absolutely loathed one another at first. But our relationship has grown and changed along with us and we've finally come to a place where we feel strong and confident in who we are together to forge ahead. It's a new day and absolutely anything is possible. Hell, I've even given up smoking." -- Reporting by Ginny Weasley, photographs by Kyle McGraw

~

There it is. My first published article. The past year has been thrilling and painful, fun and utterly wretched. I've seen Ezra and Draco a handful of times, and never longer than on the day of their wedding. Draco pulled me aside beforehand, teased me about being all grown up. He seemed irrationally jealous that Kyle was there as my photographer and date, and I reassured him that we were just friends, even though I'm not sure the guy who's marrying someone else really has a right to be jealous, especially considering he totally ignored me for the rest of the night.

I haven't seen them since, and I don't imagine I will. Not for awhile, at least. It's so hard to pretend when everyone's watching. Cho told me that we all have our secrets, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for keeping things quiet. I'm also not cut out for letting real emotion pass away, and my obsession with Draco Malfoy is about as real as it gets. My crush on Harry from a million years ago passed so thoroughly away that I can barely remember what it was like to fancy him. 

But do you know what I've found doesn't pass? Love. It fades; it changes, flows and ebbs. It knocks you on your arse, rips out your heart, makes you bleed, and compels you to come back for more, but it doesn't pass. Not with time, not with distraction, and certainly not because someone has hurt you more than you can bear. Love, real love, digs in and hangs on long after you wish to be finished with it. And it hurts, God, how it hurts. 

But the flip of it is, locked inside my heart lays the memory of something special and precious. I remember what it felt like to be loved. Not fancied, or the object of someone's passing obsession, but loved with someone's whole heart. Maybe it's not a happy ending, but that's the point: It's not an ending at all. Some things are just too great, too much to ever end. And I'm left with a sense of hope, and I really can't ask for more than that, not in times like these.

So someday when I'm old and frumpy (God willing, we'll all make it to old), a dozen grandchildren running around, I'll have my memories of Hogwarts. I'll have Harry Potter with his scar and his easy grin, kissing the backs of Hermione's fingers every single time they part ways in the halls (a ritual, she confided in me once, he performs to ensure she'll come back to him). I'll have Ron, Fred, and George plotting to pull one over on Percy because our older brother is so insufferable that they just can't help themselves. I'll have Charlie's dragon stories and Bill's comforting hugs, Hermione's good advice and Professor McGonagall's understanding. 

I'll have Snape, glaring at Ron and Harry in exactly the same way, yet willingly put his life on the line for both of them. I'll have Hagrid's gentle sweetness and Professor Dumbledore's unending patience and sage wisdom. I'll have that little tingle I got the first time I saw Harry and the sharp, fleeting pain when I realized he would never be mine. I'll have Ezra smoking her cigarettes, bemoaning her cruel fate, gossiping about boys and Kyle trying to find that perfect mauve charcoal for the sunset. I'll have Fred and George pulling on my hair and Ron ready and willing to fight for my honor.

And in the darkest, quietest place in my heart, I'll have Draco Malfoy.

I'll have his smirk, or better yet, his smile that no one else got to see. I'll have the long, pale scar over his ribs and the way he touched me the first time I didn't have to let him. The things I remember best (though not always the best of him) will have permanent residence in my soul and in the years to come, I'm sure I'll even remember his defensive cruelty with some fondness. It was a part of him, after all, just as his closed-off heart and battered pride and arrogant demeanor were a part of him, and I do miss him so very, very much.

I'll wonder where he is, and if he's allowed himself to be happy. I'll hope he remembers our secret winter together as clearly as I do, that he treasures it as I do. For a moment, I'll long for him so much that my chest literally aches with it. And then I'll take a breath until the ache passes, as old aches always do, and tuck him back into my heart where he belongs, where he'll fade and change, grow and ebb, but never, never pass away. 

And maybe, one day, I'll learn to hope out loud.

~

Hi. Epilogue coming as soon as I can possibly manage, promise …


	20. Epilogue: King Arthur's Last Gift

AN: I've had this ending worked out since I started writing, and I'll tell you why:

This fic was tailored to one person's tastes, and one person's tastes alone -- Sarea's. I asked her for a list of elements before I began, and she gave them to me, in the vaguest way possible. "Guilty pleasure premise," "Angst," "Snogging," "Smut," "Happy ending."

Note that up there. Happy ending. But happy endings aren't easy, they don't just fall out of the sky -- you've got to work hard for them. You've really got to earn them. 

To Lucius and ~Here'sLookingAtYouKid~, in particular, I thank you for the eloquently sweet words you've left from the beginning. 

A few of you have asked about more D/G fic from me -- just wanted to point out that I've actually already written one, called _The Hours Between_: http://fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1005794 -- I know it only has one chapter, but I promise, it's finished. It was a quick one-off, also written for Sarea and her awful, awful life. 

Oh yeah. I do it all for Sarea. Anyway--

Here's me, working for Happily Ever After. More blathering to follow.

__

~

Epilogue: King Arthur's Last Gift

~

__

"Not all a lie nor all true, not all fable nor all known . . ." 

This was what the foremost authority on King Arthur and his life wrote of the story Muggles believe to be legend, so this is what I write now as I try to tell the story of a new legend, one that Muggles will share at bedtime and make moving pictures about, but never really believe, for it is a tale too fantastical, too rooted in magic and evil and good and make believe to ever be taken seriously.

Since all good stories require a point of view, I'll lend mine, which is appropriate, considering I was there. I've been asked by my colleagues to divulge the intimate details of my relationship with Draco Malfoy, to explain my friendship with his wife and just what exactly went on over the past nine years.

I want to be perfectly frank: this article is the last that I will speak on this matter. After it is published, I will go on with my life. I will not answer any further questions, nor publish a memoir telling all the really juicy details. I am a reporter and I will continue to do as I have always done: observe and experience and report back my findings to you, the readers of the Daily Prophet. I apologize if it is somewhat scattered, but these events are deeply personal to me and I find myself unable to detach my emotions from the facts.

What follows is not all lie nor all true, not all fable nor all of what I know, but it is all that will ever be known by my telling.

This, then, is the story of the end.

Though even saying that much isn't quite accurate. The story ended days ago, we won, fade to black on the hero kissing his leading lady. This is more of a coda, really. This is more what happened after the end.

I certainly wasn't the leading lady, I can tell you that much. That part went to Hermione Potter. Ron Weasley was the plucky sidekick, and Harry Potter was the hero we all knew him to be. There were other players, of course. Fred and George Weasley, the loyal comic relief; Neville Longbottom, the clever boy no one suspected of any cleverness at all; Kyle and Lysandra McGraw, the gentle Hufflepuffs no one ever imagined could be running an entire undercover operation in the back room of their gallery.

There was Ezra Malfoy and her practiced elegance and switchblade smile, taking over her father's council position after he'd held it for only four years, moving from wizarding house to wizarding house with sharp efficiency, assuring the wives of other dark wizards of how loyal the new generation's Malfoys were, how eager they were to help in whatever way they could. There was poor, sweet Dean Thomas who was the first to die, and brave, beautiful Seamus Finnigan who avenged his friend's death. 

A thousand stories told, battles fought, and only one that truly interests me:

Because in the end, there was Draco Malfoy, the enigmatic double agent that turned the tide of battle in our favor. There was Lucius Malfoy's death at the hands of his Lord, one of the first to fall under a siege of dark magic intended to lay waste to the entire world. Because of Draco, we knew it was coming. Because of Ezra, no one ever suspected Draco of being anything more than a wizard with a Dark Mark on his arm. 

And because of Draco, Albus Dumbledore had just enough time to prepare.

At the end of every good story, someone's got to die. It's an unwritten law somebody really ought to copy down someday (I'd be happy to do the honors right now). A sacrifice meant to heighten the hero's triumph; to temper the joy of victory with the sorrow of ultimate defeat. No matter what some of the great dark wizards will tell you, you never do quite bounce all the way back from being dead.

I always knew someone would die; that Dean wouldn't be the only one of our circle to go. Visions, you know. Once, I told Harry that, and he got very quiet and sad, and I promised him that it wouldn't be Hermione. He'd been desperate to believe me, and I'd promised him again, and for every day after that, it was as though someone had lifted a great weight from his shoulders. Finally, he could breathe and plan and win. 

Months after that day, just as things were beginning to come to a head, Harry took me aside and we had a conversation I will remember for as long as I live:

"It won't be him either, Gin," he'd said, and I was so distracted at the time, I hadn't understood.

"Draco," he'd said, and the name had caught my attention, because everyone normally went to an extraordinary effort never to mention his name to me. "It's not going to be him, either, any more than Hermione."

"How do you know?" I'd whispered hoarsely. Everyone knows now that I've had visions since my sixth year at Hogwarts. There are only three people who've never asked me about the future: Harry and Albus Dumbledore.

"Don't know," Harry answered. "I just do. We're so close, Gin . . . can't you feel it? The universe wouldn't do that to you, not now, not when we're so close."

And then he'd been pulled away from me, and I hadn't had a chance to speak with him again until it was all over. I asked him how he knew, how he was so sure Draco wouldn't die, and he never has given me a straight answer about it. I'm not sure I really want one. I think I'm happy just knowing how many of us made it. 

Thinking of all those still left only serves to remind me of the one man who is no longer with us. Today was a sunny day, one of the brightest London has ever seen, the day we buried him. What remained of the Ministry nearly went mad trying to keep the location hidden from prying Muggle eyes. There were more wizards in attendance than the last two Quidditch World Cup matches combined, a sea of black robes stretching on for nearly a mile in either direction, forming a band around the concentric circle of the funeral pyre, flames magically burning eternally over nothing but stone and marble. 

Ezra Malfoy's funeral was a much smaller affair, attended only by Draco and myself. Many questions have been asked about Draco's decision to send their daughter, Danae, to live with her godfather, Seamus Finnigan, immediately after her mother's death. If my readers are unable to muster up any sympathy for Draco Malfoy, I would ask that they try to respect Danae's privacy so soon after her mother's death.

Most say Ezra's death was what turned Draco Malfoy against the Death Eaters. Think what you like, for the truth is never as simple as black and white.

Today, Minerva McGonagall looked tired and older than I've ever known her to be, dressed in widow's black complete with veil. Severus Snape stood by her side, his face more stoic than usual, also dressed in black, though that in and of itself was not a strange occurrence. 

Sometimes, when I'm the saddest about his absence, I think of why he did it. I think of all those that are still left, and know in my heart that he wouldn't have it any other way. It fell upon Remus Lupin and Sirius Black to speak the eulogy. Their words were all our words, their pain all our pain. We won and he lost and we all lost and no one has decided how to feel about it yet. Voldemort (For I absolutely refuse to cower in fear from his name a second longer) is finally gone, banished to the hell where, Merlin willing, he will stay this time. 

And we've all been waiting, wondering where the next blow will come from, too scared and shocked to mourn the dead or celebrate the living. But today we force ourselves to face the world we are left with, to stand tall and honor the final sacrifice made by the greatest wizard of our time.

  
Today, we all gathered together for the first time in nearly ten years to lay the soul of Albus Dumbledore to rest.

In legend, King Arthur was mortally wounded in battle, his body mysteriously transported to the Island of Avalon where he would rest until the time came for him to rise again and resume his role as ruler.

During the final battles with Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore's body was consumed in a light so bright and blinding that those who bore witness to it had trouble seeing clearly for days afterward. Privately, I like to believe he is resting somewhere, waiting for the day that he might rise again.

In the meantime, we who knew him are forced to gather and mourn, because for the time being, Albus Dumbledore is gone, and the entire wizarding world is weeping.

  
--Ginny Weasley, November 1st, 2008

~

It started out simply enough, as most things do. An owl from an old friend (they were friends, after all, no matter what else), heard you were in town, it's been ages, and would you like to pop 'round and see the baby? 

She hadn't really been a baby anymore, though. Danae had been nearly five by that time and every bit her mother, with the slightest hints of her father whenever she smiled.

Six years past since they'd all been together, six years until Ezra's owl arrived and Ginny found herself unable to refuse, unable to pass up the opportunity to see what Draco Malfoy's child looked like. And so, in town near the large, stately manor Draco and Ezra called home, Ginny paid her old friends a visit.

Ezra put out tea and scones and they exchanged pleasantries. Draco was not in the room, having taken Danae out for a go on the Flying Swings (an invention of Fred and George's) in the back yard. Ginny spoke with great affection of the passion she had for journalism, and Ezra confessed that she and Draco had kept clippings in a scrapbook of every article Ginny had ever published. 

"I catch him up late at night reading them," she'd confessed, and Ginny had been horrified and thrilled at the same time.

"I'm sure he's just--"

"In love with you still?" Ezra offered with a grin. "Yes, I'd imagine so." 

  
"Ezra," Ginny whispered, but any further conversation had been derailed by the sound of tiny feet padding at a hurried pace into the library. 

Actually seeing Danae caused Ginny's heart to flip over in her chest. The little girl held tightly to Draco's hand, and Ginny didn't let herself look at him just yet, focusing instead on the tiny pixie face before her, the dark hair and mischievous mouth she'd inherited from her mother, and the rest of her that was all her father, and how had no one ever noticed it before?

To Ginny, it was painfully obvious, from Danae's shining green eyes and infectious, sunny disposition that Draco Malfoy was _not_ her biological father.

Not so obvious to everyone, it would seem, Ezra explained after Danae went down for her nap. People only saw what they wanted to see, and the Malfoy and Easton clans merely wanted Ezra and Draco to procreate. The entire time Ezra was speaking, Ginny could not bring herself to look away from Draco. Time had left its mark on him, but if anything, he had grown further into his looks, his pale skin infused with the healthy glow of days spent playing with his daughter in the sunshine. 

Ginny made her excuses that day, her mind spinning with questions and suppositions. Did Draco know Danae wasn't his? Surely he must. Ezra knew, of that Ginny was certain, because anyone who knew Seamus Finnigan well saw him in Danae's face every time she laughed. 

Draco did know, Ginny learned a few weeks later when, once more in town for a story, Ezra sent another owl. And again, they had tea, and Ezra told Ginny more secrets. Ginny had known, of course, that Draco and Ezra had been assisting Harry and Hermione with their Muggle Technology bill, had been two of its keenest supporters (advocating publicly, of course, that the incorporation and understanding of Muggle technology would further ensure that Muggles themselves were never able to intrude upon the Wizarding world), that it was at Ezra's prodding that Edmond Easton had agreed to head the department in the first place. 

Ezra had always been pulling the strings (her father had no interest in Muggle technology, and only agreed to head the division in the first place at Ezra's behest; he was, frankly, glad to see she'd finally taken an interest in _something_), and two years ago, Edmond had finally stepped down officially, allowing Ezra to run things without interference beyond the usual Ministry red tape. Ginny knew all that. What she did not know was that late-night meetings supposedly spent discussing cost and safety had actually been a mask for an elaborate information exchange.

They were double agents, Ezra and Draco. Few dark wizards suspected Draco and none of them had any idea Ezra was also a traitor. It was part of their plan, Ezra the poor, put-upon wife whose husband didn't have the proper respect for the Dark Lord, because he had no respect for anyone or anything outside of himself. Sometimes, the other wives told her things, just to cheer her up. 

Certainly, no one suspected Ezra of carrying on a torrid affair with Seamus Finnigan who, along with his friend, Dean Thomas, had taken low-level jobs at the Ministry so they might spy on the things that otherwise had a tendency to get lost in the cracks.

Ginny took in all this new information fairly well. 

"Why didn't he contact me?!" she all but shrieked. "If it's all right for you and Seamus to carry on, why . . ."

"Why couldn't you and he carry on as well?" Ezra said with a smirk. "Simple: Seamus is a stupid oaf who doesn't know what's good for him, and wasn't about to let me go. Draco is also a stupid oaf who doesn't know what's good for him and wanted to make sure you were safe. He didn't . . . he didn't want you to be thought of as . . ."

"Doesn't he know," Ginny whispered, "that I don't _care_ what anyone thinks of me, so long as I can be with him?"

"Maybe he would," Ezra said pointedly, "if you'd ever told him. You cut off all contact, Gin. He assumed that was the way you wanted things--"

"It was the way _he_ wanted them!" Ginny sputtered. "He wouldn't even talk to me after . . . after . . ."

"Yes, well," Ezra said, gesturing to indicate that she understood when Ginny was referring to, "after our wedding, he did close off a bit. Danae's the only thing that makes him smile these days, though God knows, I do try to give him a laugh now and then. He's just hopeless without you, Gin," she said with a sigh. "And I've brought you back into this against his _and_ your brother Ron's wishes, because I can't look at him moping around like that another second." Ezra grinned. "Plus, we really, really need someone inside the Daily Prophet."

After that meeting, Ginny made routine trips to visit Mrs. Malfoy. Weeks went by, and Draco continued to make himself scarce, until one day, Ezra, having had enough of watching Draco avoid Ginny, and Ginny being too frightened to confront him, left them alone in the living room together, claiming she needed to take Danae out for "a long, long, long, _long_ walk far away from the house."

"Subtle, isn't she," Draco noted dryly.

"As a skillet to the face," Ginny agreed, nervously wringing her hands together. 

"Nice, isn't it," he said after a minute of awkward silence, "a wife not only condoning, but facilitating an adulterous rendezvous between her husband and her best friend."

"Is that what this is?" she asked after a moment. 

"I haven't a clue," Draco said. "I never wanted you involved in this, I didn't want you to be--"

"Rubbish," Ginny snapped. "You were scared. You've been terrified since the night I told you I wasn't running off with you, terrified and a little bit relieved--"

"Relieved?!" he yelled. "Are you mad? I was devastated when you--"

"Devastated," she scoffed. "Is that why you ignored me, pretended I didn't exist?"

"I was just doing what was best for you!" he insisted. 

"You were doing what was best for you," she seethed, "just like always!"

"You haven't known me in a very long time, brat," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "and you shouldn't presume to know what 'always' means."

"You're right," she said primly, smoothing the lines out of her robe as she stood up. "I should be going, _Mr. Malfoy_." At the door of the library, she turned back to him. "And don't call me that ever again. The man that used to call me that loved me and would have done anything for us to be together. When he told me it was impossible, I believed him, and I cried myself to sleep over him more nights than I can count. If there had been a way for us to be together, he would have found it."

Before she could turn and make the dramatic exit she'd intended, he sprang toward her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her to him roughly.

"He did find a way," he said in a cold, angry voice. "You didn't want to live with the consequences."

"There had to be some middle ground! It was too much to ask!" she yelled. "Leave everything behind for a man who might not even love me beyond the next month?"

"I have loved you for seven _years_," he said intensely, cold fire crackling behind his eyes. "I loved you before I even knew you! You were in my head that entire summer after my sixth year and it was all I could do to pretend you were nothing more than Annoying Ron Weasley's kid sister. When you came to me with your little proposal -- which, I'm glad to see seems to have worked out so well for you -- I was over the moon and gutted all at once. There had never been _anything_ like you in this world for me, and a minute of you was worth more than my entire life before. So no, I don't think it was too much to ask, and I don't think that . . ." It was at that point that he realized she was crying, and it seemed he was as unable as ever to see her in tears.

He started kissing her at that point, kisses that pulled at her lips and dried her tears, and she whispered that she was sorry and she loved him and he could call her whatever he liked so long as he never let her go again. 

And there was nothing illicit about it, as they both seemed to be pretending there was absolutely nothing to pretend about. This might have been _their_ house for all they knew, as they kissed and tore at one another, peeling back the social niceties to get to the vulnerable flesh and beating hearts that lay beneath it all. A game of make believe, designed to convince both that all there was to it was a blessed reunion of mouths and flesh and tongues and teeth.

The desperation inherent in their mating belied the pretense, but neither cared. They were rough and ungraceful, both of them mostly untried in carnal matters. They had only ever been with each other, after all; had only ever wanted each other. Strange, how all her friends had spent the better part of six years counseling her to find a man and marry him, or, at the very least, bed him; strange how, as she felt him inside her again at last, her heart broke with the sweet, sweet joy that she had waited for him, and she whispered into his ear on a caught breath how very much she had missed him.

Spent, spread out upon the floor of Draco and Ezra Malfoy's living room, they caught their breaths and stared at the ceiling, hands clutched tightly, wondering how they had lasted this many years apart; wondering at how this feeling, this memory hadn't faded, hadn't been blown up in their minds as something better than reality, how it really was just that good.

And then Ginny noticed (having been far too distracted trying to get his pants off earlier) the scar on his abdomen; noticed that it was barely a scar at all now, having faded the way her memories never had.

"It started after," he answered when she asked about it.

"After what?"

"After you cried for me," he answered gruffly. 

They were quiet for a moment, and she remembered when he'd told her how he'd gotten his scar, the pain in his voice as he'd detailed such a horror from his own father. Slowly, she reached out her hand and gently brushed her fingers over the faced scar. 

"Funny thing about enchantments, isn't it?" she murmured, and he'd looked at her like she was an angel or a goddess or something equally dramatic like that. Then he'd tumbled her back to the floor and they'd pretended awhile longer.

Things progressed from there. The arrangement didn't come about easily, but it certainly came about naturally. Soon, the press got word that Ginny Weasley and Seamus Finnigan had begun to date. Ginny's and Ezra's friendship was well known by that point ("You know how it is," Ezra told Rita Skeeter, "you meet up with an old friend from school, and bam! It's like you've never been apart.") and it seemed only natural that the two couples would holiday together, Danae in tow.

"Should have thought of this years ago," Ezra mumbled to Draco as she packed their bags.

"Wouldn't have worked years ago," Draco disagreed. 

Seeing Danae and Seamus together brought a tear to Ginny's eye. Danae called him Uncle Seamus and it seemed to give him as much joy as pain. Danae adored Draco, but the bond she had with Seamus was undeniable.

No one in the wizarding world paid them much mind. Once a month, they met with Harry, Hermione and Ron to discuss whatever changes had occurred in the interim. Voldemort had risen years before, and was building a following in Indonesia before moving back to the more densely populated continents. His followers had been spotted in Paris and Rome, making new recruits and cashing in old debts. Things were at once the most dangerous and the most peaceful Ginny could ever remember. 

"You were right, you know," Draco told her one long, rainy night a year into their arrangement. They were staying in the same room they always stayed in, overlooking Diagon Alley, a few doors down from the room Ezra, Seamus and Danae were staying in. The curtains were closed, as they always were, lest someone spy them carrying on in what would seem to the world to be an extra-marital affair. Never mind that the wife in question knew -- and fully supported -- the arrangement.

"You were right," he said, and she looked at him questioningly. "There is nothing but this," he continued, staring at her and through her at the same time. "You and me, here as we are now, is the only real world. Everything else is false. Hollow. What we have to go through to get back to this. Six bloody years to get back to this."

"Been thinking about that for six years, have you?" she murmured softly, a smile on her face. 

"Sometimes I think I do nothing _but_ think of things you've said to me," he muttered ruefully. "You tie me up, brat. You tie me up in knots I don't ever want to escape from."

"That's a bit pervy," Ginny noted with a giggle. 

"Perhaps we should try knots," he said thoughtfully and they spent the next half-hour ransacking the hotel room for just the right accessories.

It was only a year before Harry and Hermione started recruiting spies in earnest, a few weeks before Christmas.

~

Dean Thomas's death was the beginning of it.

One of Voldemort's loyal followers in the Ministry had discovered that Dean was spying on them. The whole of the Ministry was almost entirely under the Dark Lord's rule. In the entire world, there were only two places absolutely safe:

Hogwarts, and McGraw's Gallery. 

Voldemort was able to monitor everywhere a wizard Apparated, and it gave him total control over the comings and goings of the Wizarding World. Hogwarts and the Gallery were a safe haven, protected by dozens upon dozens of wards that placed them beyond detection. Dumbledore funneled most of his life's energy into keeping them safe, and slept most of these dark years away, leaving the day to day task of running the Rebellion to Harry.

Ginny put her contacts inside the Daily Prophet to good use. Voldemort had seized control of the media, but Ginny was able to plant coded messages within the text of mundane articles. Voldemort returned to England and the Rebellion brought out the big guns. Wizards more capable with magic than brawn, like McGonagall and Hermione, stayed behind and helped Dumbledore fight a battle with magic. The others took up enchanted swords and magic bows and arrows, armed with wands and grim determination. 

The first battles lasted for weeks. The skies were scorched with blood and magic, and the earth trembled. Muggles went on about the end of the world, shaking beneath the force of devastating 'earthquake' after 'earthquake.' Floods, they said, were caused by the seismic shifts in the earth. Floods they could never imagine were caused by the Dark Lord stamping his foot in rage as another line of his offense fell beneath the Rebellion's might.

Try as he might, Voldemort could never figure out where they came from. He watched Hogwarts, of course, but he never figured out how their forces got out of the school. The Gallery proved most useful in the final days, when Dumbledore finally ventured outside Hogwarts' walls. 

Ginny didn't witness it personally. Draco and Ron had been badly injured and needed medical attention far beyond her ability. For as long as she lived, Ginny would never forget the look on her father's face when she and Hermione levitated the unconscious, bleeding bodies of his son alongside Draco Malfoy into the house. It made her smile like nothing had in days. Later, while Draco was still unconscious, Ron woke and gave her a long, measuring look.

"You're really in love with the stupid sod, aren't you?" he'd said, as though he still couldn't quite believe it.

"Yes," she'd answered simply.

"Could you pass on a message to him for me, then?" Ron wondered. "Tell him that if the bastard makes you shed so much as one tear, I'll hunt him down and kill him like a dog in the street. Use those exact words, Gin, don't go softening the blow because you're in love with him."

"I'll let him know as soon as he comes out of the coma," she'd answered ruefully, tears caught in her eyes and her throat and just about anywhere else pain was capable of leaking from her body.

Harry, Seamus and Ezra were the only ones who witnessed what happened between Dumbledore and Voldemort. Harry and Seamus, even years later, would never quite be able to recount what they'd seen, except to remark upon how bright it had been, how unimaginably blinding. Ezra, as the Daily Prophet itself reported long before anyone confirmed Dumbledore's death, had died at the hands of the Dark Lord.

Her family was distraught, her mother refusing to leave the house, her father blaming Draco and forbidding the Malfoys from ever setting foot in his house again. Danae, too, was disowned, pronounced "Malfoy filth." 

Draco's mother had died years before, and with his father's death went his obligation to his marriage to Ezra. Lucius and most of the Death Eaters died in the final battle -- Ezra's father, did not, and like many of the Death Eaters who survived, he avoided prosecution with an age-old device -- he denied everything and spent an inordinate amount of money to ensure that proper evidence was never obtained. Ezra's death was the only way she would ever be free of him, and she wanted Draco and Danae to be free, as well. While he had mourned his mother deeply, her death had unburdened Draco in an immeasurable way, and his father's death more so. Ezra wanted to remove the last of his burdens, because while they had never had a true marriage, he was the most loyal friend she had ever had.

At least, that was what the diaries she kept told. They were discovered a few days after her death. They explained her state of mind perfectly and lent credence to the theory that she had perhaps wanted to die. People thought Draco a monster for sending his only daughter away to live in some artist's community in Ireland. She lived with her Godfather, Seamus Finnigan, and his new bride, a woman who everyone said bore a striking resemblance to Ezra Malfoy. No one ever thought about that resemblance too much, though, and if they tried, they would remember something else instead, something they'd forgotten to do or somewhere they desperately needed to go, and that would be the end of it. Some said there was magic surrounding their little family so thick you could wrap the mist of it around your wand. "Dumbledore's last gift," Seamus was often heard to remark.

Seamus Finnigan lived among Muggles, raised Draco and Ezra Malfoy's daughter among them. And Draco never said a word, never made a fuss. Visited them on holidays and every single year on Danae's birthday. They were happy. 

People had a funny habit of believing what they read in the papers. And so, in Ginny's articles, she was very careful to hint at signs of impropriety between herself and Draco. People believed what they read, and the idea of taking up with a man so soon after his wife's death was just scandalous enough to keep people from figuring out that she wasn't really dead at all.

~

Hours after she'd finished her article, hours spent thinking about the last week, the last month, the last years of her life, Ginny found herself back where she'd always wanted to be, nestled against Draco's side, the beat of her heart acting as a peaceful lullaby in his ear.

There had been hours spent making up and making love, making sure each of them were all right, and is that a new scar, and does it hurt when I do this? and yes, yes it does, but please, please don't stop. They were curled up in bed at the same hotel in Diagon Alley they'd stayed at countless times before, speaking of insubstantial things, trying not to ask each other the hard questions, because the hard questions had a tendency to make silences longer and less comfortable than they should be otherwise, and they had never wanted to waste their precious time together on awkwardness. 

Four years ago when they'd come together again, Ginny had made the conscious decision not to let any of the little things get in their way. She'd been waiting half her life for him, and now that he was hers and only hers, and no great, hulking obstacles stood in their way, she didn't intend to dawdle because she was insecure, or afraid, or anything of the kind.

His cheek was slightly rough against her breast, the pale moonlight of his hair softer than silk as she ran her fingers through it. So many shadows filled his storm-gray eyes, obscured from her by the first truly peaceful repose he'd taken in years.

Battles won at long last had that effect on the soul.

"Draco," she murmured gently, getting his attention.

"Yes, brat?" he answered affectionately, tilting his head up slightly so that she could see the fond, amused expression on his face, the half tilt of his wayward smirk. 

"Is this it, then?"

His jaw was set and she longed to sooth him, to comfort him. He didn't allow it; he never had. A nasty disposition and biting cruelty had kept him isolated from anyone who might truly care about him for the first seventeen years of his life. She doubted anyone but Ezra and she had ever really known him, and Ezra certainly never got under his skin the way that Ginny had. She didn't mean that in an egotistical way; it was simply the way things were. Ginny was a part of him that he'd carried around all these years and she hadn't been whole without him, because he'd been carrying part of her with him.

Sometimes, Ginny could tell that Draco missed Danae very much. In so many ways, he'd been her father, and Ginny promised herself that he would always be a part of Danae's life. Ezra would see to it, if nothing else. Seamus might not like it, but he would grudgingly agree, because Ezra and Danae both had him wrapped around their little fingers. 

Draco had taken to remarking lately that he couldn't wait to see if their children would have red hair or blonde hair.

Ginny couldn't wait to tell him she was pregnant. 

He'd had enough shocks for one day, though, and she figured the news could wait until he'd actually asked her to marry him, which, if the small jeweler's box she'd found in his pocket earlier while looking for a handkerchief was any indication, would be sooner than one might think.

"Is this it, then?" she asked again, content in everything she held most dear being on this bed with her. 

"What else is there?" he responded, running his fingers through her hair.

"My parents are never going to understand any of this," she declared with a resigned sigh.

  
"Fuck 'em," he announced, and before she could chastise him, he kissed her. He kissed her like they hadn't saved the world at all and it really was going to end tomorrow; he kissed her like the sun was going down on them and they might not have another moment like this one. He kissed her like he loved her and never intended to let her go again. 

But, she thought the real point in all this, was that he kissed her.

~

END

End Notes: Well, that's it. There ain't no more. If you've stuck it out this far, good on you! I hope you feel the journey was worth it. 

I'd like to take a quick moment to thank all the polite, sweet people who've commented on this story. (A special shout out to ~Here'sLookingAtYouKid~ -- well spoken. *g*) It's meant a lot, and I appreciate your thoughts, even the somewhat critical ones. What I don't appreciate, and find incredibly cowardly and childish is the habit some ff.net posters have in posting nasty attacks at an author without having the guts to put their name to it. If you don't like the writing style, the narrative, or anything else -- fine. Lodge a civil complaint (as some very nice anonymous users have done). Don't throw out false accusations you've no proof of. 

In that vein, some of you seem to be operating under the mistaken idea that I have created a Mary Sue character. Some of you have called Ginny a Mary Sue, some Ezra -- which is something I don't understand at all. Perhaps you're confusing 'Original Character' with 'Mary Sue.' Maybe you're bitter from what you perceive as the story not turning out the way _you_ wanted it to. Honestly, I don't really care. I didn't write this story for you, or for me, and I certainly didn't insert any more of myself into it than every author inserts into his or her own writing. 

As I mentioned upon posting the first chapter of this story, this fanfic was written for my sister, Sarea, because it was her birthday and she was incredibly bored and stressed out, and she happened to love the D/G pairing. I've written a lot of fanfic in my time on the Internet, and I can honestly say that no one story has given me more satisfaction than this one has, in terms of personal fulfillment, successful narrative, and flat-out entertainment value upon my own reread. The term 'labor of love' would not be overstating things at all, and so I am compelled to thank Sarea yet again: for her sense of humor, for her big red pen, for her slavish devotion to the D/G pairing which bore it all, but, most of all, I thank her for being my friend. The only hope I had pinned on _Our Winter_ from the outset was that she love it, and that she does is all the gratification I really need.

For those of you still here, who've enjoyed the journey, I hope you've all had at least a tenth as much fun reading as I've had writing.

Peace,

--J.


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